City-based writer Rahman Abbas has won the Sahitya Akademi Award, 2018, for his Urdu novel, Rohzin .
Mr. Abbas’s novel is a love story set against the backdrop of the 2005 floods in Mumbai. The novel was published in 2016 and has been widely debated in India, Pakistan, the Middle East, Canada and Europe. It begins on the day Mumbai was submerged on July 26, 2005, and is narrated with the use of mythology, legend, religion, magical realism, sexuality and sensuality. It has been translated into English and Hindi, and was published in German in February. The 46-year-old writer, who has grown up in Mumbai, is a Konkani Muslim. He was educated in Urdu and has published seven books, four of which are novels.