Established in 2018, the JCB Prize is awarded annually to an exceptional work of translated fiction from an Indian language to English. The 2023 shortlist features five remarkable books, including tales of ambition, love, and betrayal in colonial Bombay, a quest for a better life amidst turmoil in Calcutta, and narratives exploring human desires and historical secrets. Checkout the complete shortlist here.
JCB Prize 2020 shortlist | Deepa Anappara on storytelling and what it counts for
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Deepa Anappara
In this first of a series of essays, written exclusively for Lounge, by writers shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2020, Deepa Anappara looks back on writing her debut novel, Djinn Patrol On The Purple Line
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1.
One rainy morning you leave for your sister’s hospital to pick up a prescription for morphine. She is six years younger than you and she has stage four cancer, and the pain behind her ribs will not let her sit or walk or sleep. In a metal chair outside the doctor’s office, below a halting ceiling fan, you work on your masters’ dissertation, a novel about a nine-year-old boy searching for his missing friends. The room is full of the voices of patients and caregivers, and the light is artificial but mercifully dim. Your feet are planted on earth, but you feel untethered, as if you are a leaf let go by a tree. Time like a river warp