{"id":2122,"date":"2015-01-21T20:06:05","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T15:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/?p=2122"},"modified":"2015-01-21T20:32:46","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T15:32:46","slug":"dsc-prize-2015-shortlist-authors-and-novels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/desiwriterslounge.net\/blog\/2015\/01\/dsc-prize-2015-shortlist-authors-and-novels\/","title":{"rendered":"DSC Prize 2015 Shortlist: Authors and Novels"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you haven’t read the five novels shortlisted for DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, here’s a brief\u00a0guide we have put together. The winner of the prize will be announced at the Jaipur Literature Festival on Thursday, January 22, 2015.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kamila Shamsie \u2014\u00a0A God In Every Stone<\/p>\n

\"shamsiestone\"<\/p>\n

Shamsie’s sixth\u00a0novel moves across a grand landscape, traversing time and space,\u00a0examining the core of empires with questions of resistance and loyalty and forging a powerful\u00a0narrative of ambition, friendship and injustice amid unfolding history.<\/p>\n

From The Guardian’s review<\/a> of A God In Every Stone:<\/p>\n

“A novel that successfully connects and brings to life such a mass of material must be exceptionally brilliant, and possibly quite long. A God in Every Stone<\/em> is an ambitious piece of work, and its pages are lit by Shamsie’s eloquent prose. Her feeling for place is sensitive and sometimes exquisite. The flowering orchards of Peshawar are as vivid as the blood hosed by firemen from the streets of Qissa Khwani Bazaar.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Jhumpa Lahiri \u2014\u00a0The Lowland<\/p>\n

\"jhumpalowland\"<\/p>\n

In Lahiri’s signature style, The Lowland charts a family’s bonds across generations, and against conflict, while filtering the immigrant expression of South Asian emotions.<\/p>\n

From The New York Times review<\/a> of The Lowland:<\/p>\n

“Throughout, Lahiri\u2019s prose hums along as efficiently as a well-tuned engine, showing us the melancholy beauty of coastal New England; the surreal perceptions of an immigrant (so that Subhash sees in the turning leaves of fall the \u201cvivid hues of cayenne and turmeric and ginger pounded fresh every morning\u201d); and the tension between generations, from the sense of abandonment and vulnerability felt by Bela to the terror of parenting, with its visions of failure and foreboding, faced by Subhash and Gauri.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bilal Tanweer\u00a0\u2014 The Scatter Here Is Too Great<\/p>\n

\"scatter\"<\/p>\n

Stories connect in Tanweer’s debut novel to create a portrait, fractured and hopeful, of the lives of people inside Karachi’s grim and violent reality.<\/p>\n

From Dawn’s review<\/a> of The Scatter Here Is Too Great:<\/p>\n

“Tanweer uses a fragmented structure to explore Karachi\u2019s terrible beauty, while always remaining alert to the teeming narratives of the city\u2019s inhabitants. He creates a set of interconnected but freewheeling stories in which the protagonist of one crops up again as a minor character in another story, and themes or motifs overspill apparent borders in such a way as to challenge closure and the neat packaging of the short story form.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Romesh Gunesekera \u2014 Noontide Toll<\/p>\n

\"noontide\"<\/p>\n

Time, its passage and the stories it leaves behind, have be to the motif for this year’s DSC Prize shortlist. Gunesekera’s book\u00a0reflects upon the past of post-civil war Sri Lanka and the problems that are discovered anew.<\/p>\n

From WSJ’s review<\/a> of Noontide Toll:<\/p>\n

“Mr. Gunesekera is an exceptionally poised and potent craftsman. Though born in Sri Lanka, he grew up in the Philippines, the son of an international development officer, and has long been resident in England. In \u201cNoontide Toll,\u201d he turns a sober, sophisticated outsider\u2019s eye on his native land, where everyone is on guard after three decades of bombings, atrocities and brothers disappearing in the night. Yet he also has a local\u2019s unillusioned awareness of what lies behind all the smiles and the gleaming new surfaces.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Shamsur Rahman Faruqi \u2014 The Mirror of Beauty<\/p>\n

\"shamsur\"<\/p>\n

Faruqi’s self-translated novel is as good a masterpiece as the original Urdu. With amazing aesthetic, he has captured the essence of an entire civilisation with depth and beauty.<\/p>\n

From Livemint’s review<\/a> of The Mirror of Beauty:<\/p>\n

“Something of an epic in its expansiveness, The Mirror of Beauty defies any attempt even to enumerate its tantalizing wealth, much less to adequately discuss it in a few hundred words. It would be tantamount to attempting \u201cto see a world in a grain of sand\u201d or describing \u201ceternity in an hour\u201d. The whole way of life of 18th and 19th century India is gathered in the novel\u2019s encyclopaedic sweep. One can literally assemble countless inventories of manners, ceremonies, festivals, fabrics, jewellery, arts and crafts, arms and weaponry, you name it.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 
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