The winners of The Hindu Prize 2019 Fiction and Non-Fiction are Mirza Waheed ( Tell Her Everything ) and Santanu Das ( India, Empire, and First World War Culture: Writings, Images and Songs ). The winners for both categories were selected by an eminent panel of judges.
The jury members for fiction were diplomat and author Navtej Sarna, author and columnist Nilanjana Roy, author Pradeep Sebastian, researcher and translator J. Devika and professor Rajeswari Sunder Rajan. For non-fiction, the jury comprised Kamini Mahadevan, publishing consultant; Chandan Gowda, faculty member at Azim Premji University; Harsh Sethi, former consulting editor with Seminar ; author Rustom Bharucha; and author and social anthropologist Shiv Visvanathan.
The citation describes Prof. Das’ work as “a sensitive exploration of the human dimensions of a major modern war that reshaped global politics and culture in fundamental ways” and as one that “helps to re-examine the scholarly and popular imaginations of the First World War which have tended to ignore the involvement of close to over a million Indians in it, and in particular, the tens of thousands among them who lost their lives.”
“An extraordinary work of fiction whose complexity, depth and narrative mastery would be hard to match in contemporary world literature,” reads the citation for Mr. Waheed’s Tell Her Everything , describing it as “a compelling novel, both a narrative tour de force and an exploration of a profound existential and moral conundrum.”
The Hindu Prize was instituted in 2010 to honour writers who have spent their lifetime mining the human spirit through their words and ideas. The prize is usually awarded at a ceremony during The Hindu ’s annual literature festival Lit For Life. However the 2020 edition had to be cancelled due to a challenging environment. An award ceremony to be held on March 28 was also cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Hindu Lit For Life will be back in January 2021.
