The Hindu : Metro Plus Delhi / Events : Best word wins

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 02, 2009

Metro Plus Delhi

Published on Mondays, Thursdays & Saturdays

Metro Plus Bangalore Chennai Coimbatore Delhi Hyderabad Kochi Madurai Thiruvananthapuram

Best word wins

Here’s the Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2008 shortlist

Shortlisted Salman Rushdie

Literary awards are a good thing, even though awards can be subjective. Panellists who gathered recently at India Habitat Centre to announce the shortlist for the Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2008 reached this conclusion. In a room of publishers and writers, noted authors Sankar, Namita Devidayal and Urvashi Butalia — co-founder of Kali for Women — announced the shortlist nominations while also discussing the “relevance of literary awards in India today”. Sarnath Banerjee played the casual host.

The nominees were selected from 176 valid entries submitted by publishers in the categories of English Fiction, Indian Language Fiction Translation and English Non-fiction. The winners will be announced on July 23 in Mumbai and each will be given Rs.3 lakhs along with a trophy.

Meritorious

Instituted in 1998, this book award “recognises and rewards the best of Indian writing and ensures that works of merit reach a wider audience”. Butalia, who headed the panel, said that such literary awards are a good thing for all concerned. They provide recognition and sales to authors. For publishers, it’s a reassurance that they are on the right track. For readers, it’s a sign of what is good. And for sponsors it’s a way to connect with matters of intellect rather than lucre. But despite the obvious benefits it is also true that literary choices are highly limited and even more subjective.

Sankar (winner of Indian Language Fiction, 2007, for “Chowringhee”) said in his measured tone, “Literary awards are relevant but most of them are in a mess,” adding, “Literary awards are important but if they are badly managed they are harmful.”

The Vodafone Crossword award has also had to constantly negotiate its own parameters. R. Sriram (Founder Crossword Bookstores) explained that the award was started to increase book sales, as readers would demand the winning books. The award is also a way to support existing writers, and that’s why it is not given posthumously.

At the end of a debate that spanned issues from the relevance of literary awards to whether debut writers can fairly compete with established writers, the one point of agreement was that books and authors deserve all the attention they can get.

NANDINI NAIR

The list

Fiction

“An Atlas of Impossible Longing” Anuradha Roy

“Escape” Manjula Padmanabhan

“Evening is the Whole Day” Preeta Samarasan

“Past Continuous” Neel Mukherjee

“Sea of Poppies” Amitav Ghosh

“The Enchantress of Florence” Salman Rushdie

“Unaccustomed Earth” Jhumpa Lahiri

Non-Fiction

“Curfewed Night” Basharat Peer