Poet Arundhathi Subramaniam on Saturday won the inaugural Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry for her work When God is a Traveller .
The winner was announced at a prize ceremony at the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival, attended by over 2,500 poetry lovers. Ms. Subramanium said, “I am delighted. Particularly given what a muted art poetry is, a prize like this is a reminder that it has value — even in the noisy world we inhabit.”
The award, carrying a cash prize of Rs. 2 lakh, was established earlier this year by Suhel Seth in memory of the late Khushwant Singh and is open to Indian poets writing in English or Indian language translation. The jury, which included Ashok Vajpeyi, Jeet Thayil, Namita Gokhale, Pavan K. Varma and Soli Sorabjee, chose from among the nominated books of poetry by a single author published between September 15, 2013 and 2014.
The other shortlisted works were: Escape Artist by Sridala Swami (Aleph Book Company); Central Time by Ranjit Hoskote (Penguin Viking); Fire Altar by Keki N Daruwalla (Harper Collins India) and Selected Poems by Joy Goswami translated by Sampurna Chattarji (Harper Perennial).