Arundhati Roy, Perumal Murugan, Mohsin Hamid in DSC Prize Longlist

The 2018 Longlist features six women authors and three women translators, and two outstanding debut novels.

The longlist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2018 was announced on 10 October 2018 at the Oxford Bookstore in New Delhi.

The longlist of 16 novels includes 4 translated works – where the original writings were in Assamese, Kannada, Tamil and Hindi. It also features six women authors and three women translators, and two outstanding debut novels that find place alongside the works of several established writers.

The longlist represents the best of South Asian fiction writing over the last year and includes submissions from a diverse mix of publishers and authors of different backgrounds writing on a wide range of issues and themes.

The novels that made it to the list for the USD 25,000 Prize are –

Anuradha Roy’s All The Lives We Never Lived, Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness, Chandrakanta’s The Saga Of Satisar, Deepak Unnikrishnan’s Temporary People, Jayant Kaikini’s No Presents Please, Jeet Thayil’s The Book Of Chocolate Saints, Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, Manu Joseph’s Miss Laila Armed And Dangerous, Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, Neel Mukherjee’s A State Of Freedom, Perumal Murugan’s Poonachi, Prayaag Akbar’s Leila, Rita Chowdhury’s Chinatown Days, SJ Sindu’s Marriage Of A Thousand Lies, Sujit Saraf’s Harilal & Sons, Tabish Khair’s Night Of Happiness.

This year, the DSC Prize – administered by the South Asian Literature Prize & Events Trust – received 88 eligible entries and the five-member international jury panel diligently went through these entries to arrive at this year’s longlist of 16 novels.

Last year, the DSC Prize was awarded to Anuk Arudpragasam for his novel, The Story of a Brief Marriage.