A Man Asian for every season, for every reason

Contestants from every corner of India have appeared on the Man Asian longlist. NAMITA GOKHALE introduces the runners

LITERARY PRIZES are like lifebuoys for new writing: they rescue struggling authors from drowning in the virtual sea of media indifference. The longlist for the Man Asian Literary prize shows up a range of voices from across the continent, and an unsurprising number of these are from India. These include Tulsi Badrinath (Melting Love), Anjum Hasan (Neti, Neti) Daisy Hasan (The To-Let House), Rupa Krishnan (Something Wicked This Way Comes), Kavery Nambisan (The Story That Must Not Be Told), Sumona Roy (Love in the Chicken’s Neck), Vaibhav Saini (On The Edge of Pandemonium), Salma (Midnight Tales) Siddharth Dhanvant Shangvi (Lost Flamingoes of Bombay) Sarayu Srivatsa (The Last Pretence) and Amit Varma (My Friend Sancho).

The prize accepts entries for unpublished works of Asian fiction in English, including translations. Eleven of the 21 listed works are from India, with the Phillipines following next in numerical strength. Established as well as first-time authors feature in the longlist. I have had the good fortune to know some of them, or to have seen the unpublished manuscripts.

Salma, the pen name of RA Rokkiah, is a writer I greatly admire and respect. At the Jaipur Literature Festival last year, Salma wowed audiences and held her own with international writers, although she spoke through a Tamil interpreter. Salma’s prose, as well as her powerful poetry, is rooted in the reality of pain and rebellion. Midnight Tales has been rendered into English by Lakshmi Holmstrom, one of India’s finest translators. Salma, a vibrant and compelling woman, is one of the few ‘buddhijeevis’ in my acquaintance who has used her literary genius to leverage attention for herself and others who write, speak and exist from marginalised spaces. She has moved from behind the burqa to centrestage, and is now an empowered panchayat leader. Her writing is situated much deeper than the rhetoric of gender politics. Midnight Tales is a strong and moving human document. I’m glad that this extraordinary talent will gain more readership and visibility with exposure through the longlist.

Chennai-based Tulsi Badrinath is another strong voice with an intense sense of place and location. I have read extracts from her soon-to-be published novel, which Niyogi Books shall be bringing out by the end of the year. This novel, The Living God, was also on the longlist of the first Man Asian Literary prize. As a Bharatnatyam dancer, Badrinath brings the metaphors of dance to her writing with felicity. Melting Love which is on this year’s longlist, is the story of a museum curator in Chennai.

Kavery Nambisan is another fine voice in Indian English writing. Her experiences as a doctor colour and permeate her work, as in the recent The Hills of Angheri. I am looking forward to her new novel which is set in Chennai. Sarayu Srivatsa has co-authored Out of God’s Oven: Travels in a Fractured Land, and The Long Strider with Dom Moraes. She also wrote of her experiences as an architect in Where the Streets Lead. Her longlisted novel is set in Machilipatnam. Siddharth Shanghvi is an established talent. His debut, The Last Song of Dusk received a great deal of popular and critical attention. Shanghvi is a Mumbaikar and The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay is again set in the city of his birth.

Anjum and Daisy Hasan are sisters. Anjum’s first book, The Lunatic In My Head, was set in Shillong, and Neti Neti, the sequel, is set in Bangalore, where she now lives. Daisy’s book is set in Shillong as well.

Sumona Roy, Amit Varma, Vaibhav Saini, both Hasans and Rupa Krishnan, the other names in the longlist, should expect a fair deal of attention. Many, if not most, of them, live in and write from the south of the Vindhyas. Roy’s book is set in Siliguri, Saini’s novel in Vidharbha. I have no idea what this might indicate, except that the excitement of articulating the millions of untold stories is spreading out across the subcontinent. •