2023 JCB Prize for Literature longlist announced

This year, there are four translations – from Bengali, Hindi, and Tamil – and six books originally written in English. 

Authors Manoranjan Byapari and Perumal Murugan whose works have been longlisted twice for the Prize, feature for the third time.

Author Tanuj Solanki is on the longlist for the second time.

Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, who was longlisted for the prize as an author in the past, is longlisted as a translator for Hindi writer Manoj Rupda’s book. This is Hansda’s first-ever work of translation.

Hindi writer Geet Chaturvedi’s debut novel in translation joins the list – Anita Gopalan, the translator, is also in the longlist for the first time. 

Debut authors Tejaswini Apte-Rahm and Bikram Sharma are also on the longlist.

Urdu writer and Jamia Millia Islamia professor Khalid Jawed won the Prize last year for The Paradise of Food, translated from the Urdu by Baran Farooqi.

For the 2023 Prize, the jury, chaired by author, travelogue writer and translator Srinath Perur, consists of Mahesh Dattani, well-known playwright and stage director; Somak Ghoshal, author, critic and learning designer; Kavery Nambisan, author and surgeon; and Swati Thiyagarajan, conservation journalist and filmmaker.

Recounting his experience, jury chair Srinath Perur said: “The jury read the entries over the last few months, meeting online every couple of weeks. We read for freshness, relevance, accomplishment and ambition among other things. And we read for pleasure.”

The longlist:
The Secret of More, Tejaswini Apte-Rahm (Aleph Book Company)
The Nemesis, Manoranjan Byapari, translated from the Bengali by V Ramaswamy (Westland Books)
The East Indian, Brinda Charry (HarperCollins India)
Simsim, Geet Chaturvedi, translated from the Hindi by Anita Gopalan (Penguin Random House India)
Fire Bird, Perumal Murugan, translated from the Tamil by Janani Kannan (Penguin Random House India)
Everything the Light Touches, Janice Pariat (HarperCollins India)
Mansur, Vikramjit Ram (Pan Macmillan India)
I Named my Sister Silence, Manoj Rupda, translated from the Hindi by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (Westland Book)
The Colony of Shadows, Bikram Sharma (Hachette India)
Manjhi’s Mayhem, Tanuj Solanki (Penguin Random House India)