Interesting trends in South Asian writing: DSC Prize jury

(New Delhi, Nov 14, 2017) With the DSC literature prize winner all set to be announced at Dhaka this Saturday, the judges say they found interesting trends emerging in South Asian writing – uprootedness, geographical, spiritual alienation as also the allure of joining extremist organisations overseas.

The five shortlisted novels are Anjali Joseph’s The Living, The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam, Aravind Adiga’s Selection Day, Karan Mahajan’s The Association of Small Bombs and In the Jungles of the Night by Stephen Alter.

According to jury chair Ritu Menon, all the five novels display a remarkable skill in animating current universal preoccupations in unconventional idioms, and from a distinctively South Asian perspective.

Jury member Valentine Cunningham says his long view of fiction by South Asian writers has been affirmed by this year’s contestants: “there’s a great deal of middling material, fictions that are not much good, to put it bluntly, often rather narrowly focussed (the same domestic, marital, family, political, historical  aspects and concerns cropping up again and again).”

The best fictionists are the best because they manage to work these familiar furrows with such canniness, aplomb, and (various) imaginative and formal force as to make them rise out of the ordinary, he adds.

“Such rising is the characteristic of our shortlist.”

Cunningham also argues that it’s also the arresting case that not all but very many, even a majority, of the best contemporary South Asian fictionists live and write abroad – in Canada, the US and England, especially in Canada and the US.

“This has a lot to do with Canadian and US and some British universities providing a home for South Asian writers – beginning, in the case of the US and Canada, at the student level.  Which is, of course, why the most notable of modern South Asian fiction is often about uprootedness, geographical and spiritual alienation, being liminal between cultures,” he told PTI.

Another judge Senath Walter Perera says politics in the South Asian region continues to be a popular theme – often treated seriously but sometimes in a manner that is burlesque.

“This year the allure of joining extremist organisations overseas for those living comfortable, middle class lives in the West was an additional concern,” he says.

“Issues relating to diasporic living persist in South Asian writing emerging from the UK and the US though the focus is now on the children or grandchildren of immigrants,” he adds.

Although no translation made it to the shortlist, Perera says the jury read many excellent translations which provided another dimension to the competition.

“Raj nostalgia remains an irresistible theme in South Asian writing in English with carefully researched narratives on the period. I did not find much innovation in narrative structure in this year’s entries though an epistolary novel between women living in two different South Asian countries did catch my eye,” he says, adding this was his personal response.

DSC Prize shortlist: Jury had no bad tempers, no walk-outs!

(New Delhi, Nov 12, 2017) With the DSC literature prize all set to be announced at Dhaka this Saturday, the judges say they kept the process simple: a compelling story, very good writing, exceptional talent and strong characterisation and had no bad tempers, walk-outs or concealing of interests.

Jury chair Ritu Menon says the process followed by the international jury was one of consultation and consensus throughout.

Besides eminent writer Menon, other members of the jury are Valentine Cunningham, Professor Emeritus at Oxford University; US-based Steven Bernstein, screenwriter, director, author, cinematographer and lecturer; television broadcaster Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, based in London; and Senath Walter Perera of the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka.

“Members of the jury read the 60 plus novels submitted over a period of three months, and sent in their initial recommendations for the longlist.  These were then discussed by the jury as a whole, and the 13 longlisted titles selected, with each member casting their individual vote in an open process. The shortlist (of five), announced in September, was decided in the same manner,” Menon told PTI.

Despite the diversity in their backgrounds and reading contexts, the exchanges and sharing of views were remarkably cordial, with each juror commenting on the novels selected in detail, and from their perspectives, she says.

“As experienced readers and, in some cases, jurors, our criteria for judging were simple: a compelling story; very good writing; exceptional talent; strong characterisation. Clear literary merit, obviously. The fact that we were able to agree on the long and shortlisted titles unanimously is a tribute to both the process, as well as to the quality of novels submitted,” she says.

According to Cunningham, the process of selecting the longlist and then the shortlist worked well.

“The longlist was arrived by long-distance email communication between the judges scattered across the globe! Chairperson managed this part very judiciously, I thought. The shortlist was arrived when the jury met in the flesh in London,” he says.

“Again discussion ably mastered or mistressed by the chair. Not a lot of disagreement; amicable agreements and disagreements. Nothing out of the normal for such these meetings. No bad tempers, no walk-outs, nobody concealing interests: all of which are known occasionally to occur!” he goes on to add.

The short-listed five were the agreed quintet of the jury, Cunningham says.

“As is normal, not every member of the jury was equally enthusiastic for all five, and equally normally there were certain fictions that some jurists regretted not getting on the shortlist. But this is committee work and the practice is, as here, for the jury to accept majority voting. And to agree that the shortlist finally arrived at has due merit,” he says.

The five shortlisted books are each different from each other, with different qualities, but all are considerably abled fictions, Cunningham says.

Perera says communications among the jury were usually effected by the chair and carried out as and when necessary.

“Once the judges were formally introduced to each other by the DSC administrators, the chair of the panel informed the panelists of the manner in which she wanted to set up the process and asked if the panelists had any other views on the matter or suggestions so that the process could be further improved,” he tells about the judging process.

“As it transpired, all panelists agreed with her plan. A deadline was given for the judges to come up with individual lists. Contact among the judges become more frequent just before the long-listing until consensus was reached. The process was the same just before the shortlisting and at present when jurors are going through the shortlisted entries to pick a winner,” Perera says.

The most striking feature on the judging process, according to Perera, was how judges from different backgrounds and cultures, living in different locales, and no doubt subscribing to diverse ideologies in their personal and professional lives were able to arrive at a long list and shortlist without even minor disagreements.

“That was one of the ‘interesting aspects’ when comparing the judging of this DSC prize with some others I have been involved in,” he says.

The five novels in the race for the DSC prize are Anjali Joseph’s The Living, The Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam, Aravind Adiga’s Selection Day, Karan Mahajan’s The Association of Small Bombs and In the Jungles of the Night by Stephen Alter.