We are delighted to present eleven titles our judges selected for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2021-22 shortlist.
The winner of the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize 2021-22 will be announced at our awarding ceremony. The event will be held on Monday, December 19, 2022 in Delhi, at India International Centre.
Congratulations to the shortlisted authors!
The titles are:
1. A Play for the End of the World
Jai Chakrabarti (Knopf, 2021)
2. Manual for a Decent Life
Kavita A. Jindal (Linen Press, 2020)
3. Two and a Half Rivers
Anirudh Kala (Niyogi, 2021)
4. A Sky Full of Bucket Lists
Shobhana Kumar (Red River, 2021)
5. Osmosis
Debarshi Mitra (Hawakal Publishers, 2020)
6. The Elegant Nobody
Jagari Mukherjee (Hawakal Publishers, 2020)
7. My City is a Murder of Crows
Nikita Parik (Hawakal Publishers, 2022)
8. I Want a Poem and Other Poem
Jerry Pinto (Speaking Tiger Books, 2021)
9. The Earthspinner
Anuradha Roy (Mountain Leopard Press, 2021)
10. Anthropocene: Climate Change, Contagion, Consolation
Sudeep Sen (Pippa Rann Books&Media, 2021)
11. Love Without a Story
Arundhati Subramaniam (Bloodaxe Books, 2021)
Here you can read why we loved our eleven finalists:
A Play for the End of the World
Jai Chakrabarti
a novel
Knopf
2021
Wonderfully complex, A Play for the End of the World delves into the paradox of life, when existence is experienced as a moral burden, granted unjustly and unequally, but also in the healing power of a work of art, encountered in the most unlikely of circumstances.
The story follows two fellow orphans, permanently scarred by survivors guilt, holding onto an elusive sense of purpose glimpsed in a stage play by Rabindranath Tagore. Performed haphazardly in the WWII Polish ghetto, Dak Ghar was an enactment of resistance, in immigrant Brooklyn it became a leitmotif of restoration, and amidst a Naxalite uprising in rural Bengal, an offering of atonement.
Manual for a Decent Life
Kavita A. Jindal
a novel
Linen Press
2020
Kavita A. Jindal cuts through all the relevant contemporary narratives and tells the story of Waheeda, a mother and a Muslim, who ventures into a world of politics in the midst of socially unprogressive mindset. In a time and place where every layer of society is patriarchal, each step Waheeda takes is a transgression of what defines her and soon enough her life is a battlefield with everything at stake, yet, what she stands to lose is not what she bargained for.
Manual for a Decent Life is a gripping read about what happens to a woman who, at her own peril, violates established patterns of what is proper, but remains resilient despite the enormity of sacrifice.
Two and a Half Rivers
Anirudh Kala
a novel
Niyogi Books
2021
Here is an engrossing, yet a terrifying account of Punjab insurgency that turned the land of two and a half of the formerly five rivers, into a cesspool of decomposing bodies for more than a decade.
The severe dehumanization of religious extremism, communalism, casteism, militancy and pogrom are recounted with a tone of gloomy detachment by a medical doctor debilitated by clinical depression. His mental condition hints at the scope of hopelessness in the circumstances, resistant to reason and deeply ingrained in prejudice, among which, every now and then, a character, whose story is also about community and history, flickers with unexpected humanity and grace.
A Sky Full of Bucket Lists
Shobhana Kumar
a haibun collection
Red River
2021
What a delight it is to read this combination of jazz like cadence, sharp wit and profound compassion!
A Sky Full of Bucket Lists is a well of linguistic acuity that brings forth the reality of being a human in its raw and underrepresented form. Shobhana Kumar addresses unease with ease, angst with grace, and offers a unique perspective on the truth of personal struggle, behind the veneer of convention and past the bitterness of social rejection.
Osmosis
Debarshi Mitra
a poetry collection
Hawakal Publishers
2020
More than anything else, Osmosis is an act of appreciation of beauty in its most harmonious state, experienced with humility, serenity and acute awareness of transience, expressed with calm, meditative wisdom and in elegantly simple language and form. Arresting and refined.
The Elegant Nobody
Jagari Mukherjee
a poetry collection
Hawakal Publishers
2020
The Elegant Nobody is brimming with sensuality and the vitality of desire. Jagari Mukherjee is unrelenting in celebrating the genuine feminine impulse, reminding the readers of the potency and truth contained in passion and deep emotion.
My City is a Murder of Crows
Nikita Parik
a poetry collection
Hawakal Publishers
2022
In this impressive collection, the conveyors of intrinsic significance are components of fixed, overarching structures, such as body anatomy and city maps. Authonomized, these units are juxtaposed with each other and depicted with unrestrained symbolism analogous in skill and vividity to the finest visual art. Extraordinary.
I Want a Poem and Other Poems
Jerry Pinto
a poetry collection
Speaking Tiger Books
2021
I Want a Poem and Other Poems is a collection of reflections grounded in experience, wisdom and utmost honesty that captures from the first page. Jerry Pinto renders the mundane with the same ingenuity as he does the most personal matter, that is, with a canny dose of nonconformity and abundance of whimsy.
The Earthspinner
Anuradha Roy
a novel
Mountain Leopard Press
2021
Shimmery with life, true like a myth,The Earthspinner is a story of the art of clay pottery, but also of forbidden love, blind desire, treachery of envy, of transformation by urges we have no claim on, of drives destructive and creative like elements.
Fascinating and laden with symbolism of a dreamscape, the novel brilliantly captures the flow of the ambiguous and volatile force, that given reign, spreads like wildfire leaving in its wake nothing but devastation and turns its subjects into shadows of their former selves.
Anthropocene: Climate Change, Contagion, Consolation
Sudeep Sen
a collection of poetry, prose and photography
Pippa Rann Books&Media
2021
Sudeep Sen writes a powerful and intimate testimony to the human life inexorably and agonizingly devolving, in real time and in direct confrontation with Nature that runs its rebalancing course, keeps the Death by its side and doesn’t shiver at the sight of human arrogance.
The impact Anthropocene is making, as a collection of observations that directly address the conundrum of our present and our future, but also in regard to the innovative utilization of genre, is impossible to overestimate.
Love Without a Story
Arundhati Subramaniam
a poetry collection
Bloodaxe Books
2021
The undercurrent to the key theme of transformation, as complex and as sophisticated as it can be: whether it is deciphering the meaning of desire and death, reevaluation of the sense of belonging or deconstruction of love, womanhood and wisdom – is longing, often simultaneously mystical and sensual, yet, this apparent dichotomy is what illuminates with insight and clarity, the language as an inch – perfect as a cut gem.
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