The Vodafone-Crossword Book Awards 2008 shortlist is star-studded — and finding place are ‘The Enchantress of Florence’ by Salman Rushdie, ‘Sea of Poppies’ by Amitav Ghosh, ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ by Jhumpa Lahiri, ‘Past Continuous’ by Neel Mukherjee and ‘Escape’ by Manjula Padmanabhan.
This was announced by a panel comprising publisher-writer Urvashi Butalia, authors Mani Shankar Mukherji and Namita Devidayal and founder of Crosswords Bookstore R. Sriram in the capital Thursday.
The shortlisted nominees were selected by a panel of judges from a long list of 176 entries submitted by publishers.
The eligibility criteria for the award is that entries must be works of prose fiction, excluding teenage and children fiction, the entries must be either full-length novels or collections of short stories, they must be original works in English and the authors must be of Indian origin.
‘The role of the awards is not just recognising the authors. It is almost like the Oscars. We want to take contemporary Indian literature to a new level and involve people,’ said Namita Devidayal, winner of the award in 2007 for her work of fiction ‘The Music Room’.
How do they shortlist? is it on popularity of the book or the fame of the author? I can understand Rushdie, Amitav Ghosh and even Jhumpa Lahiri, no one dare leave them out of an award such as this. But Escape by Manjula Padmanabhan???? Even a google search for reviews of the book will put the book in perspective.
This awards do appear to follow a market, not to set any literary ideas…
Anyway, I hope for Ghosh, this time.
Have you read The music room? It has just been translated in Italy and it would be great to hear your opinion.
Bye.
Hi Silvia,
I read about The Music Room only through the press release about the Vodafone awards, that one of the judges this year was the winner last year…..I dont know if its my ignorance or the popularity of the book
DM
Worked for a major film publication for a few years and worked closely with the judges during nominations and winner discussions. If you knew how they chose the nominees or winners you would be shocked. It is blatant nepotism and currying favor season. Not sure about book awards, but some of it is sure to trickle down.
Came here through google, searching for In the country of Deceit. Whoa that was quite a review and quite a feedback. I was just searching it as one of the possibles for our book club and came across your review. Will not vote for it, thanks for the heads up.
You have a great blog going, will keep visiting.
Are u on a break? Noticed there haven’t been any new post since June.
Hey thanks much Jaya….I guess I have to be regular. I took a break, was going through a difficult patch. But your comment means a lot and I will be consistent.
Thanks once again. Keep visiting.