Vodafone-Crossword award shortlists Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh
This shortlist of nominees was selected by an eminent panel of judges from the longlist of all valid entries (176 entries) submitted by publishers in the categories of English Fiction, Indian Language Fiction Translation and English Non-Fiction.
Tweet-- VODAFONE, India’s leading cellular service provider and CROSSWORD, India’s leading chain of lifestyle bookstores announced the Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2008 shortlist nominations.
The Vodafone-Crossword Book Awards 2008 shortlist is star-studded — and finding place in the fiction category are “The Enchantress of Florence” by Salman Rushdie, “Sea of Poppies” by Amitav Ghosh, “Unaccustomed Earth” by Jhumpa Lahiri, “Past Continuous” by Neel Mukherjee, “Evening Is The Whole Day” by Preeta Samarasan, “An Atlas of Impossible Longing” by Anuradha Roy and “Escape” by Manjula Padmanabhan.
The shortlists in the non-fiction category include “Curfewed Nights” by Basharat Peer, “Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country” by Sudeep Chakravarti, “Smoke and Mirrors” by Pallavi Aiyar, “The Last Jews of Kerala” by Edna Fernandes and “The Women of Mahabharata” by Chaturvedi Badrinath.
The shortlisted books in translation category include “Dissonance and Other Stories” by K.S. Subramanian, “Manto - Selected Stories” by Aatish Taseer, “T’TA Professor” by Ira Pande and “The Wind from the Hills” by Prema Jayakumar.
The announcement was made by renowned Bengali author Sankar (Winner in the Indian Language Fiction Translation category in 2007 for his book ‘Chowringhee’), author Namita Devidayal (Winner of the Popular Award in 2007) at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi, Urvashi Butalia (Co-founder, Kali for Women) and R.Sriram (Founder- Crossword Bookstores) at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The panel also discussed the “relevance of literary awards in India today”. Eminent author Sarnath Banerjee played host for the evening.
This shortlist of nominees was selected by an eminent panel of judges from the longlist of all valid entries (176 entries) submitted by publishers in the categories of English Fiction, Indian Language Fiction Translation and English Non-Fiction.
Notes to Editor
About the Awards
The Vodafone Crossword Book Award is the only Indian award that recognizes and rewards good writing and also actively promotes the authors and their books. This year the Award has received a record number of 176 valid entries in the above mentioned categories, thus making the awards representative of the best of contemporary Indian literature.
The awardees would be felicitated at a function on Thursday, 23rd of July at Nehru Auditorium, Mumbai. Each award carries a cash prize of Rs. 3 lakhs, a trophy and a citation. In the case of the Indian Language Fiction Translation category, the author and the translator share the prize money equally.
Vodafone and Crossword have also instituted a ‘Popular Award’, offering readers the opportunity to vote (via sms) for their favourite book from the list of the short listed books across the English Fiction and English Non - Fiction categories. The winner will be felicitated with a cash prize of Rs. 1 lakh and a trophy at the final Awards function.
Mr. Chandrashekhar Navalkar - CEO Crossword Bookstores quotes: “It’s an honour for us to present this year’s Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2008 Shortlist in New Delhi for the very first time. It is a proud feeling for us as we have finally brought down one phase of the Book Award to Delhi, considering that the city has given birth to many literary geniuses. I congratulate the writers who have made the cut and we look forward to Indian writing reaching new heights through this award.”
THE VODAFONE CROSSWORD BOOK AWARD 2008
Objective of the Award:The Vodafone Crossword Book Award recognizes and rewards the best of Indian writing and ensures that works of merit reach a wider audience.
Background:Crossword and Vodafone are committed to promoting books and the reading habit. We have observed that the institution of international book awards - The Booker Prize, The Commonwealth Prize or The Pulitzer Prize has gone a long way in promoting the awareness and the reading of good books. The authors gain recognition and are rewarded handsomely.
While several Indian writers have won awards abroad, we had observed that there was no equivalent award in India. We therefore decided to take on the role of encouraging and promoting good Indian writing and instituted the Book Awards, in 1998. It is the only Indian award that not only recognizes and rewards good writing but also actively promotes the authors and their books.
Eligibility Criteria
Best Work in English Fiction
§ Entries must be works of prose fiction, excluding children and teenage fiction.
§ Entries can be full-length novels or collections of short stories by one author.
§ Entries must be original works in English.
§ Entries must be published within the period 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2008.
§ Collections of short stories should also be published between the period 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2008.
§ The authors of the books must either be Indian citizens, persons of Indian origin, residents in India or persons with an Indian domicile.
§ The authors must be alive on the closing date for the entries.
§ Entries must be made by the publishers and the last date for receiving the entry forms is 28th February 2009.
Indian Language Fiction Translation
§ Entries must be works of prose fiction, excluding children and teenage fiction.
§ Entries can be full-length novels or collections of short stories by one author.
§ Entries must be English translations of works in any Indian language written after 1947.
§ The translated works must be published within the period 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2008.
§ The authors and translators of the books must either be Indian citizens, persons of Indian origin, residents in India or persons with an Indian domicile.
§ The translator must be alive on the closing date for the entries.
§ Entries must be made by the publishers and the last date for receiving the entry forms is 28th February 2009.
Best Work in English Non-Fiction§ Entries must be works of non-fiction, in the areas of current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography, sociology, anthropology, ecology and the arts.
§ Entries can be full-length books or collections of essays or articles by one author.
§ Entries must be original works in English.
§ Entries must be published within the period 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2008.
§ The authors of the books must either be Indian citizens, persons of Indian origin, residents in India or persons with an Indian domicile.
§ The authors must be alive on the closing date for the entries.
§ Entries must be made by the publishers and the last date for receiving the entry forms is 28th February 2009.
The Past Winners and Judges:The winner of the 1998 Award was I. Allan Sealy for ‘The Everest Hotel’. In 1999 we expanded the Award to cover two categories - one for original works in English by an Indian Author and one for translations from Indian languages into English. The winner of the 1999 Award was Vikram Seth for ‘An Equal Music’ as the best original work in English and author M. Mukundan and translator Gita Krishnankutty, for ‘On the Banks of the Mayyazhi’ as the best novel translated from an Indian language into English.
The winner of the 2000 Award was Jamyang Norbu for ‘The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes’ as the best original work in English and author Bama and translator Lakshmi Holmstrom, for ‘Karukku’ as the best novel translated from an Indian language into English.
The winner of the 2004 Award for English Fiction was Amitav Ghosh for ‘The Hungry Tide’ and the prize for the best work in the Indian Language Fiction Translation category was won by the author Chandrasekhar Rath and the translator Jatindra Kumar Nayak for ‘Astride the Wheel (Yantrarudha)’. The winner of the 2005 Award for English Fiction was Salman Rushdie for ‘Shalimar the Clown’ and the prize for the best work in the Indian Language Fiction Translation category was won by the author Krishna Sobti and the translators Reema Anand and Meenakshi Swami for ‘The Heart has its Reasons’.
In 2005, we added two new Award categories – English Non-Fiction, as well as a Popular Award category for which readers voted for their favourite books shortlisted for the English Fiction and English Non-Fiction categories. The winner of the 2005 Award for the Best work in the English Non-Fiction category was Suketu Mehta for ‘Maximum City: Bombay Lost & Found’ and the Popular Award was won by Rahul Bhattacharya for his book ‘Pundits from Pakistan: On Tour with India, 2003-04’.
The winner of the 2006 Award for English Fiction was Vikram Chandra for ‘Sacred Games’. The prize for the best work in the Indian Language Fiction Translation category was jointly won by the author C.S. Lakshmi (Ambai) and the translator Lakshmi Holmstrom for ‘In a Forest, A Deer’ and the author M. Mukundan and the translator A.J. Thomas for ‘Kesavan’s Lamentations’. The prize for the best work in the English Non-Fiction category was won by the author Vikram Seth for ‘Two Lives’ and the Popular Award was won by Kiran Desai for her book ‘The Inheritance of Loss’.
In 2007, the award for English Fiction went to Usha K. R. for ‘A Girl and a River’. The award for best work in the Indian Language Fiction Translation category was shared by author Sankar (Mani Sankar Mukherji) and translator Arunava Sinha for ‘Chowringhee’ and author Anand C. P. Sachidanandan and translator Gita Krishnankutty for ‘Govardhan’s Travels’. The 2007 winner in the English Non-Fiction category was William Dalrymple for his book ‘The Last Mughal’. Namita Devidayal won the 2007 Popular Award for her debut book ‘The Music Room’.
Judges in the past have included eminent authors and personalities like Kiran Nagarkar, Vikram Chandra, Dilip Chitre, Paul Zacharia, Mukul Kesavan, Anita Roy, Shoma Chaudhury, Rama Bijapurkar, Meenakshi Mukherjee, Urvashi Bhutalia, Sukanta Chaudhuri, Geeta Doctor, Harsh Sethi, Mukund Padmanabhan, Dilip Kumar, Nilanjana S Roy, Kai Friese and Malashri Lal.
Recognition for the Awards:
“Beforethe award, I was known as ‘a leading writer from Kerala’ or ‘a leading Malayali writer’. When I won the Crossword Award in 1999, the press qualified me as ‘a leading Indian writer’. Yes, this is what the award means to me. All of a sudden, it transformsa regional writer like me into a national writer. The Vodafone Crossword Book Award gives us writers a new identity and an unflinching self-confidence. Bravo!”
- M. Mukundan, winner of the 2006 Indian Language Fiction Translation Award for ‘Kesavan’s Lamentations’
“Winning the Vodafone Crossword Book Award was one of the high points of my writing life and the reason for that is that there is no Award like the Crossword Award…The thing about the Crossword Award is that we know who the jury is, we may not know before hand, but we do see afterwards. These are our peers and there’s something spectacularly wonderful about being judged by your peers. For me, it was deeply moving; it meant more to me than any other Award I’ve received.”
- Amitav Ghosh, winner of the 2004 English Fiction prize for ‘The Hungry Tide’
“Contrary to popular opinion, Crossword hasn’t quite provided an Indian Booker. Instead, it has gone one better – demonstrated that there’s enough good literature coming out of the country for us to have our own derby without looking longingly towards a western field of dreams.”
- Nilanjana Roy, Business Standard
“While any talk of literary awards, especially Indian writing in English, eventually leads to Bookers, Whitbread’s and Pulitzers — in spite of our very own Sahitya Akademi and Jnanpith awards — Vodafone Crossword Book Award is slowly but surely gaining prominence as a veritable Indian version of the Booker prize.
In fact, many Indian authors are appreciating this as a gesture of Indian books being lauded by Indians.
Essentially, this is what the Vodafone Crossword Book Award aims to do. Instituted in 1998, it wants to compete with the biggies. In fact, it's already out to give the other awards some serious competition”
- ‘Naipaul, Rushdie in Indian Booker race’, CNN-IBN (www.ibnlive.com), 18th January 2006.
A book is the only place you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face.” – Edward P. Morgan
About Crossword:
Crossword is India’s leading bookstore chain, which has pioneered the lifestyle bookstore concept in India. Its innovative approach to book retailing and its achievements have received wide acclaim in India and has won the ‘Reid & Taylor Award for Best Retailer of the year – Leisure & Specialty’ at the India Retail Summit 2005 'Images Retailer of the Year award for the books, music and gifts category for 2005'. Businessworld rated Crossword as the '6th Most Respected Retailer in the country' for the year 2006; the only bookstore to feature in the top ten. Launched in 1992, Crossword currently has 50 stores across 11 cities in the country in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune & Vadodara. Crossword Bookstores Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary Company of Shopper’s Stop Ltd – India’s leading department store chain. The Holding Company inter-alia also acts as a Master Franchisee of the Company.
About Vodafone:Vodafone Essar in India is a subsidiary of Vodafone Group Plc and commenced operations in 1994 when its predecessor Hutchison Telecom acquired the cellular licence for Mumbai. Vodafone Essar now has operations in 16 circles covering 86% of India’s mobile customer base, with over 45.78 million customers*.
Over the years, Vodafone Essar, under the Hutch brand, has been named the ‘Most Respected Telecom Company’, the ‘Best Mobile Service in the country’ and the ‘Most Creative and Most Effective Advertiser of the Year’.
Vodafone is the world’s leading international mobile communications company. It now has operations in 25 countries across 5 continents and 40 partner networks with over 260 million customers worldwide. Vodafone has partnered with the Essar Group as its principal joint venture partner for the Indian market.
The Essar Group is a diversified business corporation with interests spanning the manufacturing and service sectors like Steel, Energy, Power, Communications, Shipping & Logistics and Construction. The Group has an asset base of over US$ 50 billion and employs over 30,000 people.
*Figures from Cellular Operators Association of India, April 30, 2008.