The five-book-strong shortlist for the Rs 25-lakh JCB Prize for Literature 2020 (with an additional prize money of Rs 10 lakh for the translator in case the winning book is a translation) has been announced. Reflecting the expansion of the literary imagination increasingly seen in fiction from India, the shortlist spans works featuring magical realism, speculation about the near future, an unusual narratorial voice, a complex saga about generations of women in a family, and a multi-perspective telling of the lead-up to a grimly real and violent incident.
The shortlist, which includes three debuts:
- Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, Deepa Anappara, Penguin Random House India
- Chosen Spirits, Samit Basu, Simon & Schuster India
- These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light, Dharini Bhaskar, Hachette India
- Moustache, S Hareesh, translated from the Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil,…