The longlist of the 2021 JCB Prize for Literature was announced today, with Shillong’s own Daribha Lyndem among those being considered by the panel of judges.
Ten Indian novels were selected by the judges – Sara Rai, Annapurna Garimella, Shahnaz Habib, Prem Panicker and Amit Varma – six of which are by debut authors. Lyndem is one of those; her work is Name Place Animal Thing, which is published by Zubaan Books.
The longlist was chosen from a wide range of submissions by writers from 16 states writing in multiple languages published between August 1, 2020 and July 31, 2021.
The JCB Prize for Literature is awarded each year to a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer. The jury will announce the shortlist of five titles on October 4. The winner of the Rs 25 lakh prize will be announced on November 13. If the winning work is a translation, the translator will receive an additional Rs 10 lakh. Each of the five shortlisted authors will receive Rs 1 lakh; if a shortlisted work is a translation, the translator will receive Rs 50,000.
Besides Lyndem, the other debutant authors are Rijula Das, Krupa Ge, Shabir Ahmed Mir, Lindsay Pereira and Keerthik Sasidharan.
Talking about the prize outreach, Mita Kapur, Literary Director, said: “What we were looking for in the submissions this year, I think, was a sense of the world beyond ourselves. We reached out to publishers, big and small, across the country, working with books originally in English and translated from Indian languages. The books we received surprised us by showing us multiple ways of living and being, taking us out of the spaces our bodies and minds were confined to. Our continued dedication to look for great literature beyond the narrow confines of genre means that the longlist will have something for every reader.”
