No Presents Please-Mumbai Stories of renowned Kannada poet short-story writer, columnist and playwright and lyricist Jayant Kaikini, translated by Tejaswini Niranjana (Harper Perennial, Harper Collins India), is competing with six other works for the prestigious 2018 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.
Earlier, No Presents Please was among 16 works chosen from 88 entries. It has now moved as one of six literary works shortlisted. Jnanpith recipient and playwright Girish Karnad said of the book, “Very few writers have caught the absurdities, pathos and comic turmoil that drive life in an Indian city today with the vibrancy of Jayant Kaikini.”
Now in its eighth year, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is one of the prestigious international literary awards for South Asian fiction writing. The shortlist was announced on Thursday by Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Chair of the DSC Prize 2018 jury panel. The others in the shortlist include Home Fire , by Kamila Shamsie; Miss Laila, Armed And Dangerous , Manu Joseph; Exit West by Mohsin Hamid; A State Of Freedom by Neel Mukherjee; and Harilal & Sons by Sujit Saraf.
On No Presents Please , the jury said, “The shortlist also includes a translated book where the original writing was in Kannada.” Mr. Kaikini has been writing in Kannada for the past four decades.
The announcement of the winner will be followed by an award ceremony at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet, which would take place in Kolkata from January 22 to 27, 2019.
Mr. Kaikini has been writing in Kannada for four decades now. Though the title of the work is No Presents Please-Mumbai stories, it is not about Mumbai, essentially it is about what Mumabi enables.
