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The Vodafone
Crossword Book Award 2007 for English Fiction
goes to...
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A Girl and a River
by Usha K. R.
About The Book :
It is the 1930s and the fire of the freedom movement from
distant Bengal and Delhi is warming the languid bones of the
small town in Mysore, where Kaveri and Setu grow up. Theirs
is a liberal, prosperous household and the family takes its
privileges for granted. Mylaraiah, their father, believes
that they are twice protected from such delusions as 'swaraj'-once
by the British and then by the Maharaja. While Setu absorbs
their father's unquestioning veneration of the British, Kaveri,
profoundly affected by Mahatma Gandhi's visit to their town,
comes to recognize their attempts to be 'more English than
the English' as rather shameful. In an attempt to follow her
heart and take charge of her own future, Kaveri defies her
father and participates in the Quit India march organized
by Shyam, the hot-headed revolutionary she is attracted to.
Angered and jealous, and loyal to his father, Setu is forced
into betraying his sister. The small town is shaken into life
quite brutally when it faces a police firing for the first
time in its history. But Kaveri is safe and home, or so Setu
thinks . . .
Fifty
years later, Setu's daughter tries to unravel the circumstances
of her uneasy upbringing, of the grit-in-the-eye feeling to
her childhood; understand her cold father, her self-effacing
mother and their refusal to talk about their past. Two books
and a letter found in a tea tin in the attic lead her to Kaveri
and it is Kaveri, whose fate remains shrouded in mystery,
who has the answer to her questions. But even with all the
pieces of the jigsaw in hand, the picture eludes her. She
is forced to come to terms with the insidiousness of family
bonds as she realizes that the truth, if it at all exists,
is made of elisions and imperfections.
About Usha K.R.:
Usha K.R. is a writer and editor who lives and works in Bangalore.
She has been writing fiction in English for over two decades,
beginning with short stories which were published in various
Indian magazines. Her short stories, some of them for children,
have been published in various magazines and newspapers including
Femina, Savvy, Debonair, Target, Children's World and the
Deccan Herald. Her story, Sepia Tones, won the Katha Award
for Fiction in English in 1995.
The Judges:
1. Mukul Kesavan : Mukul Kesavan is an Indian
writer. His first book - Looking Through Glass received wide
acclaim and became a bestseller. He teaches social history at
Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi. He's keen on the game of cricket,
but in a non-playing way. His credentials for writing about
the game are founded on a spectatorial axiom: distance brings
perspective. Kesavan's book of cricket, Men in White, was published
by Penguin India in 2007. Later in the year he wrote, The Ugliness
of the Indian Male and Other Propositions published by Black
Kite. The book is a collection of essays on a wide variety of
themes ranging from Indian films to Indian men to travel writing
and even political commentary. He is also the co-editor Civil
Lines, the journal of new Indian writing, and an essayist of
some prominence. His columns have appeared in The Telegraph,
CricInfo and Outlook Magazine, among other places.
2. Manjula Padmanabhan: Manjula Padmanabhan is a Delhi-based
writer, illustrator, cartoonist, playwright and artist. She
has illustrated 21 children's books, and has had a longrunning
cartoon strip, Suki, in the Sunday Observer and later the Pioneers.
Her comic strips have appeared weekly in the Sunday Observer
and daily in the Pioneer. Her books include Hot Death, Cold
Soup,Getting There, This is Suki! and Kleptomania. Her fifth
play, won the 1997 Onassis Award for Theatre. Manjula has illustrated
twenty-four books for children including her own novels for
children, Mouse Attack and Mouse Invaders (Macmillan Children's
Books, UK, 2003, 2004).
3. Kai Friese:
Kai Friese is a journalist and magazine editor in New Delhi
German ancestors.
This
is an intricately plotted and beautifully written novel that
moves between an intensely imagined past and an uncertain
present. The story is centered on an adolescent girl, Kaveri,
who grows up in princely Mysore during the high tide of Gandhian
nationalism. The novel realizes this world with skill and
assurance. The happenings in Kaveri's life and the life of
the small town in which the novel is set range from domestic
pleasure to tragedy, but they are narrated with a quiet mastery
that is the signature quality of this book. Unlike novels
set in a taken-for-granted present which never acknowledge
the shaping force of public events or antiquarian fictions
in which characters are diminished by the weight of the imagined
past, A Girl and a River gives us vivid individual lives that
are made (and unmade) in surprising ways by great historical
transformations. Usha K.R. tells her formidably complex story
in an even, supple voice that makes the most unlikely transition
seem plausible. This novel is in part a quest story where
family secrets lie buried in the debris of grand events. It
leaves readers with a new awareness of the way in which family
histories are moulded by a shared past. A Girl and a River
does that rare thing: it creates a world so discreetly furnished
with historical detail that it seems alive.
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Mukul Kesavan
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Manjula Padmanabhan
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Kai Friese
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The Vodafone Crossword
Book Award 2007 for English Non Fiction
goes to... |
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The Last Mughal
by William Dalrymple
About The Book:
Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the last Mughal Emperor, was a mystic, a
talented poet, and a skilled calligrapher, who, though deprived
of real political power by the East India Company, succeeded in
creating a court of great brilliance, and presided over one of the
great cultural renaissances of Indian history. In 1857 it was Zafar's
blessing to a rebellion among the Company's own Indian troops that
transformed an army mutiny into the largest uprising the British
Empire ever had to face.
The Last Mughal
is a portrait of the dazzling Delhi Zafar personified, and the story
of the last days of the great Mughal capital and its final destruction
in the catastrophe of 1857. Shaped from groundbreaking material,
William Dalrymple's powerful retelling of this fateful course of
events is an extraordinary revisionist work with clear contemporary
echoes. It is the first account to present the Indian perspective
on the siege, and has at its heart the stories of the forgotten
individuals tragically caught up in one of the bloodiest upheavals
in history
About William Dalrymple:
William Dalrymple was born in Scotland and brought up on the shores
of the Firth of Forth. He wrote the highly acclaimed bestseller
In Xanadu when he was twenty-two. The book won the 1990 Yorkshire
Post Best First Work Award and a Scottish Arts Council Spring Book
Award; it was also short listed for the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial
Prize. In 1989 Dalrymple moved to Delhi where he lived for six years
researching his second book, City of Djinns, which won the 1994
Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and the Sunday Times Young British
Writer of the Year Award. From the Holy Mountain, his acclaimed
study of the demise of Christianity in its Middle Eastern homeland,
was awarded the Scottish Arts Council Autumn Book Award for 1997;
it was also short listed for the 1998 Thomas Cook Award, the John
Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize. A collection of
his writings about India, The Age of Kali, won the French Prix D'Astrolabe
in 2005.
The Judges:
1. Mukund Padmanaban: Mukund Padmanabhan is the Senior
Associate Editor of The Hindu. He oversees the newspaper's feature
sections -- the Sunday Magazine, The Literary Review and various editions
of Metro Plus and Friday Review, which are published as independent
editions in multiple centers. He also writes editorials and analytical
articles for the newspaper on legal and political subjects.
Mukund studied
economics at the Madras Christian College before switching to philosophy,
which he studied at the University of Delhi and the London School
of Economics.
He taught philosophy
briefly at The Hindu College in Delhi before turning to journalism
as a career. He worked as an Assistant Editor in News time, Hyderabad,
before moving to Calcutta to work as a Roving correspondent for
Sunday Magazine. He moved to Chennai in 1992, where he worked for
the Indian Express, which he left for The Hindu in 1997.
2. Anita Roy:
ANITA ROY is an editor, writer and critic and was, until last
year, publishing head of Dorling Kindersley India. She is now commissioning
books for children and young adults for Young Zubaan, an imprint of
the newly launched publishing house, Zubaan.
3. Harsh Sethi: Mr Harsh Sethi holds a Masters Degree in Economics,
Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, Delhi. Harsh Sethi is
presently consulting editor of the monthly, Seminar. He has earlier
been assistant director, Indian Council of Social Science Research;
associate fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies,
Delhi; editor 'Lokayan Bulletin; and acquisitions editor, Sage Publications.
Mr. Sethi has written extensively on the role and development of voluntary
organizations in India.
William
Dalrymple's The Last Mughal distinguishes itself as a major work
of non-fiction on at least three counts. It is based heavily on
new and hitherto largely untranslated sources; it presents an intimate
and vivid evocation of Mughal Delhi; and it forces us to reassess
the events of 1857, which mark a watershed in the history of colonial
India. This last would not have been achieved without the first
two; and the first two would not have been possible without the
invaluable contribution of Mahmood Farooqi, whose translations from
original Urdu sources lays the rich, textured, bedrock upon which
the author builds his narrative. The final book is a truly collaborative
venture and a testament to the painstaking scholarship, research
and literary flair of both parties as they present an extraordinary
range of vanished voices - kebab sellers and princes, courtesans
and spies, poets and killers, royalty and rabble-rousers, victors
and victims. Dalrymple captures the twilight of Mughal Delhi with
a rare humanity. The book is not so much about Bahadur Shah Zafar,
after whom it is named, but the tolerance and syncretism he stood
for. In Dalrymple's eyes, the fall of Delhi to the British was not
just the end of one empire or the birth of another. It represents
a much bigger loss - the end of a unique way of life.
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Mukund Padmanaban
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Anita Roy
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Harsh Sethi
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The Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2007 for Indian
Language Fiction Translation goes to...
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Chowringhee
by Sankar, translated by Arunava Sinha
About The Book :
Set in 1950s Calcutta, Chowringhee is a sprawling saga of the intimate
lives of managers, employees and guests at one of Calcutta's largest
hotels, the Shahjahan. Shankar, the newest recruit, recounts the
stories of several people whose lives come together in the suites,
restaurants, bar and backrooms of the hotel. As both observer and
participant in the events, he inadvertently peels off the layers
of everyday existence to expose the seamy underbelly of unfulfilled
desires, broken dreams, callous manipulation and unbidden tragedy.
What unfolds is not just the story of individual lives but also
the incredible chronicle of a metropolis.
Written by best-selling
Bengali author Sankar, Chowringhee was published as a novel in 1962.
Predating Arthur Hailey's Hotel by three years, it became an instant
hit, spawning translations in major Indian languages, a film and
a play. Its larger-than-life characters-the enigmatic manager Marco
Polo, the debonair receptionist Sata Bose, the tragic hostess Karabi
Guha, among others-soon attained cult status. With its thinly veiled
accounts of the private lives of real-life celebrities, and its
sympathetic narrative seamlessly weaving the past and the present,
it immediately established itself as a popular classic. Available
for the first time in English, Chowringhee is as much a dirge as
it is homage to a city and its people.
About Sankar:
Sankar (Mani Sankar Mukherji) is the author of several Bengali
best-sellers, both fiction and non-fiction. Two of his novels, Seemabaddha
(Company Limited) and Jana Aranya (The Middleman), were turned into
films by Satyajit Ray. Sankar also wears a corporate hat, as Chief
Advisor (Corporate Relations) at RPG Enterprises. He lives and works
in Kolkata.
About
Arunava Sinha:
Arunava Sinha is an Internet product specialist and former
journalist. Born in Kolkata, he graduated in English Literature
from Jadavpur University and went on to join the team that set up
Calcutta Skyline, a city magazine, for which he translated short
stories by several modern and contemporary Bengali writers. Arunava
blogs at blogs.ibibo.com/readonly. He lives in New Delhi with his
wife and son.
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Govardhan's Travels: A novel
by Anand C P Sachidanandan, translated by Gita Krishnankutty
About The Book :
Halfway through his famous play on injustice, Andher Nagari
Choupat Raja, Bharatendu Harishchandra stops: What is the duty of
a writer-to depict reality as it exists or to project what it should
actually be? Unable to decide, Bharatendu abandons the play and
releases Govardhan, the main character who is unjustly condemned
to death, from drama to real life.
The noose still
hangs over Govardhan's head as he walks out of prison as a representative
of all those who are victims of the ruthlessness and absurdity of
justice. He questions everyone he encounters and raises a storm
which gains momentum as he journeys through space and time. The
lines between fact and fiction blur as a host of people from mythology,
history and literature join him, some asking questions, like him,
and others opposing them.
As we follow
Govardhan's meanderings, we realize that his journey will never
end, for with the passage of time he will find more places to visit
and more people to meet, even as the ever-present noose tightens
around his neck. Ultimately, there can be no escape for the Govardhans
of this world.
Anand's imaginative
recreation of Govardhan's life after his release from prison maintains
the farcical nature of Bharatendu's work, although it moves away
from the comfortable ending of Andher Nagari Choupat Raja. It provides
a terrifying portrait of the cruelty and irrationality of the world
which we contend as civilized
About Anand C P Sachidanandan :
P. Sachidanandan was born in 1936 in Kerala. His first book,
Aalkkoottam (The Crowd) was published in 1970. With no formal training
in language, he developed his own literary dialect, which suited
the themes he selected for his stories over the years. His works
traverse mythology, history and contemporary realities and dwell
on the mechanism of power and the deprivation and injustice in society.
He has written
nine novels, forty short stories, two plays and two major philosophical
works apart from numerous articles on contemporary topics.
About Gita Krishnankutty:
Gita Krishnankutty has translated the novels and short stories
of several Malayalam writers including M.T.Vasudevan Nair, Lalithambika
Antharjanam, N.P. Mohammad, Paul Zacharia and M. Mukundan. She lives
in Chennai.
The Judges:
1. Paul Zacharia: Paul Zacharia is a Malayalam Short
story writer, Novelist and essayist. He was born in 1945 at Urulikkunnam
in Kottayam district in Kerala. He lives in Trivandrum.
His works have been translated into English and other languages.
He is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award. Recognised as heterodox
in style, Zacharia's short stories and novels are similarly radical
in theme. His prose is devoid of sentiment, and he is constantly
experimenting technically. The Library of Congress has in its collection
thirteen books by him. His criticism of religious fundamentalism,
and his airing of concern over the 'hijacking' of religious figures
such as Mata Amritanandamayi, has led to severe criticism of his
writing by the organizations of the Sangh Parivar
2. Dilip Kumar: Editor Dilip Kumar, a well-known Tamil writer,
is a Gujarati. Dilip Kumar, has several awards to his credit. He
has published two collections of short stories (Moongil Kuruthu,
Cre-A, Chennai, 1985, and Kaduvu, Cre-A, Chennai, 2000) and a critical
work on Mauni-a pioneer of Tamil short stories (Mouniyudan Koncha
Thooram, Vanadhi Pathipagam, Chennai, 1992). He lives in Chennai
and runs a small literary bookshop.
3. Urvashi Butalia: Urvashi Butalia is an Indian feminist and historian.
She is the Director and Co-founder of Kali for Women, India's first
feminist publishing house. Butalia was born in Ambala India in 1952.
She earned a B.A. in literature from Miranda House, Delhi University
in 1971, a Masters in literature from Delhi University in 1973,
and a Masters in South Asian Studies from the University of London
in 1977.
She worked as an editor for Zed Publishing and later went on to
set up her own publishing house. She heads Zubaan, the newly launched
publishing house. Her writing has appeared in several newspapers
including The Guardian, The Statesman, The Times of India and several
magazines including Outlook, the New Internationalist and India
Today. Butalia is a consultant for Oxfam India and she holds the
position of Reader at the College of Vocational Studies at the University
of Delhi. Her main areas of research are partition and oral histories.
She has also written on gender, communalism, fundamentalism and
media.
Anand's
Govardhan's Travels is an unusual,
adventurous, humourous and dark story that describes the travels
and travails of Govardhan, originally a character in Bhartendu Harishchandra's
Andher Nagari Chaupat Raja, who is released by his creator to go
out into the world. Free, in a manner of speaking, but nonetheless
carrying a death sentence on his head - not because he is guilty
of a crime but because the law has to be implemented and a death
by hanging is decreed, and his is the only neck that fits the noose
- Govardhan finds his way into an irrational, frightening, mysterious
and frighteningly illogical world, where history encounters reality,
kings interact with commoners, lessons are learnt from ants, and
the god of Death is weary of his job.
Govardhan's search leads him to question the very meaning of life,
of death, of violence, of justice, and in the search he encounters
characters as diverse as Ibn Batuta, Ruswa, Umrao Jan, Kabir and
many others. In the end, Govardhan's new creator - the novelist
Anand - comes back to ask where and how he can take this tale, echoing
Bhartendu's dilemma, out of which Govardhan was released in the
first place. Gita Krishnakutty's flawless, fluent, lively and nuanced
translation of this accomplished and sophisticated work by one of
Malayalam's best known, and most original authors, brings this stunning
novel to life in the best possible way. She makes the transition
from the original to English with ease, but always with the nuance
of the original providing a subtle, underlying context for the translation.
Sankar's
novel Chowringhee is a deeply
moving yet gently satirical novel about the human condition. An
old world hotel in Kolkata, the Shahjahan, provides the locale for
a story that is set in the fifties, and reveals the intimate lives
of those who run the services that make life easy for the elite.
The community of hotel workers - managers, receptionists, bell boys,
liftmen, clerks and musicians - comes alive as a dignified, lively,
courageous group who make sense of the world around them, sometimes
by coining a new language, sometimes by crossing the barriers of
class, and often simply by believing in each other. In exposing
the seamy underside of urban life, Chowringhee reveals the author's
deep attachment to and involvement with the life of a metropolis.
Sankar's novel is an accomplished depiction of urban life, making
his novel a popular classic of its time. Arunava Sinha's translation
is confident, racy, fluid and easy, capturing the different languages
of the underclass and the elite, bringing alive the world of urban
Kolkata, while making the novel reach out to a much wider readership.
An Internet product specialist, an English literature graduate,
here Sinha brings to the fore another unusual and important talent,
that of a skilled translator.
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Paul Zacharia
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Dilip Kumar
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Urvashi
Butalia
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