"I had published this book with the apprehension that I had not done justice to the time and events that inspired the story. I am therefore particularly proud of this prize," Lahiri said.
The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015 was awarded to Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival on Thursday evening. The prize shortlist included Kamila Shamsie's A God for Every Stone (Bloomsbury), Romesh Gunesekera's Noontide Toll (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin), Bilal Tanweer's The Scatter Here is Too Great (Vintage Books/Random House) and Shamsur Rahman Faruqi's The Mirror of Beauty (Penguin Books).
While Lahiri was not present at the event to receive her award, she talked to the audience on a Skype call from Rome. Lahiri thanked the jury and DSC for the award and called the award 'a great honour'. "I started writing this book 20 years ago. It's the first book I tried to write from the real stories I heard as a young girl in the 70s growing up in America. I had published this book with the apprehension that I had not done justice to the time and events that inspired the story. I am therefore particularly proud of this prize," Lahiri said.
The Lowland is a tale of Indian brothers who come of age in the 1950s in Calcutta. As one of the brothers get involved in the Naxalite movement in the late 1960s and the other leaves for the United States, the book looks at where their choices lead them.
The chairman of the jury for the prize Keki Daruwalla called The Lowland "a superb novel written in restrained prose with moments of true lyricism." "The book is written by a writer at the hieght of the craft," Daruwalla added.
While appreciating the award for recognising and celebrating literature of South Asia, Lahiri said, "The book represents an emotional desire to feel closer to India."
Vijay Sheshadri, the 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, was chief guest at the event and appreciated the DSC's support of the prize and called it 'enlightened Philanthropy' of the DSC. This, however, will be the last year that DSC supports the prize. DSC Ltd's Surina and HS Narula were present at the ceremony. HS Narula hailed the prize for bringing the necessary attention to the literature of the region and talked of his pride in being associated with the award.
The announcement of the prize was preceded by readings by the nominated authors from their books. Daruwalla asserted that the form of a novel is 'alive and kicking' despite worries from critics and others. However, he did point out that within South Asian literature, there was a need for recognition of writers who were not internationally published. "Desi writers remain desi and we have to be careful about that," he added.
The jury for the prize was chaired by Keki Daruwalla and included John Freeman - author, literary critic and former editor of Granta from the US, Maithree Wickramasinghe - a Professor of English at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka and the University of Sussex and an expert on gender studies; Michael Worton - Emeritus Professor at UCL (University College London) who has written extensively on modern literature and art; and Razi Ahmed - the founding director of the annual, not-for-profit Lahore Literary Festival (LLF).
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