The 2015 DSC Prize For South Asian Literature

Notable scholars, critically-acclaimed writers and international prize-winners are nominated this year for the fifth annual DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. A jury of literary luminaries will select the winning novel from a shortlist, announced on Thursday 27 November 2014 in London, of works celebrating the culture of South Asia and representing the complexities of its people. We take a look at the longlist and get to grips with the authors vying for this prestigious accolade.

A selection from the 2015 DSC Prize Longlist

Despite a particular focus on emerging talent, the 2015 DSC prize nonetheless names illustrious authors like Khaled Hosseini and Jhumpa Lahiri amongst the longlist, which includes a number of diaspora writers stirring the global literary scene with political, historical and personal narratives.
The debut novel by Bilal Tanweer, ‘The Scatter Here is Too Great’, centres around a bomb explosion in Karachi, Pakistan, and is nominated alongside ‘Helium’ by prize-winning author Jaspreet Singh, which explores the consequences of a politically-motivated attack on a professor the day after Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi’s assassination in 1984. The only work of historical fiction on the longlist, Shamsur Rahman Faruqi’s 2013 novel ‘The Mirror of Beauty’, transports the reader to the edge of a new era, as the Mughal Empire begins to fall and two characters begin their own epic journey through a civilisation on the brink of dissolution.
The most eminent author on the list is Khaled Hosseini, whose 2013 novel And The Mountain Echoed followed on from the unprecedented global success of his previous works The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Both of Hosseini’s early works feature Afghani protagonists and direct global attention to a conflict-torn region through intimate and tragic narrative.
The DSC Prize is co-founded by Ms. Surina Narula MBE and Mahnad Narula, recognised for their charitable work and entrepreneurship. Previous winners hail from three different countries in South Asia – HM Naqvi from Pakistan (Homeboy, Harper Collins, India), Shehan Karunatilaka from Sri Lanka (Chinaman, Random House, India), Jeet Thayil from India (Narcopolis, Faber & Faber, London) and Cyrus Mistry from India (Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer, Aleph India). The winner of the 2015 DSC Prize will be announced at the renowned Jaipur Literature Festival on 22nd January 2015, where past guests include Oprah Winfrey, Deepak Chopra and the Queen of Bhutan.

The Longlist:

Bilal Tanweer – Recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship for an MFA in creative writing at Columbia University amongst other grants, author of The Scatter Here Is Too Great
Jaspreet Singh – novelist, essayist, short story writer and a former research scientist, author of Helium
Jhumpa Lahiri – acclaimed author of Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake, also author of The Lowland
Kamila Shamsie – shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, author of A God in Every Stone
Khaled Hosseini – as well as an author, Hosseini is also a Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Refugee Agency and the founder of The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, author of And the Mountains Echoed and The Kite Runner
Meena Kandasamy – poet, writer, activist and translator, author of The Gypsy Goddess
Omar Shahid Hamid – served with Pakistan’s Karachi police for 12 years, author of The Prisoner
Romesh Gunesekera – shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994, author of Noontide Toll
Rukmini Bhaya Nair – Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, as well as a guest lecturer at universities ranging from Singapore to Stanford, author of Mad Girl’s Love Song
Shamsur Rahman Faruqi – Celebrated writer and critic, author of The Mirror of Beauty

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