Reticent author Cyrus Mistry on Saturday beat
off stiff competition from five other writers to become the fourth winner of
the $50,000 DSC prize for South Asian literature on Saturday for his book
“Chronicles of a Corpse Bearer”. The prize, is given to the best work or
translations of a work on or about the South Asian region.
Last year the award was won by Jeet Thayil
for his debut debut novel “Narcopolis”. Mr. Mistry was presented with the award
at a ceremony at the Jaipur Literature Festival here this evening by Gloria
Steinem.
“I have tried to keep myself as detached as
possible with the possibility of winning this prize, so am not so enthusiastic
but happy about the win,” Mr. Mistry said after receiving the award. Other
books in the running were “Anand: Book of Destruction” (Translated by Chetana
Sachidanandan) “Benyamin: Goat Days” (Translated by Joseph Koyippalli), Mohsin
Hamid: “How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia”, “Nadeem Aslam: The Blind Man’s
Garden” and Nayomi Munaweera: Island of a Thousand Mirrors.
Union HRD Minister was originally slated to
inaugurate the prize ceremony. Noted writer, editor and literary critic Antara
Dev Sen chaired the five member jury which first announced a long list of 15
names and then came up with a shortlist of six from which Mr. Mistry was
chosen. Mr. Mistry’s book is a story of marginalised community and looks at
larger questions about life and death, which makes it a different read.
Set in the city of Mumbai, it revolves around
the lives of a hardly heard of and rarely-seen set of people, corpse bearers or
Khandhias within the Parsi community. Their job is to carry bodies of the
deceased to the Towers of Silence.
The jury comprised of Arshia Sattar, Ameena
Saiyid, Rosie Boycott, and Paul Yamazaki. The shortlist was announced in
November last year.
The DSC Prize for
South Asian Literature was instituted in 2010
by its founder, Surina Narula. The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is
a literary prize awarded annually to writers of any ethnicity or nationality
writing about South Asia themes such as culture, politics, history, or people.
It is for an original full-length novel written in English, or translated into
English.
Cyrus Mistry is an Indian author and playwright. He won the 2014 DSC Prize for South Asian
Literature for Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer. He is the brother of author
Rohinton Mistry.
Mistry is from Mumbai. He began writing at a
young age as a playwright, but has also worked as a journalist and short-story
writer. His first short was published in 1979. He has also written short film
scripts and several documentaries. One of his short stories, "Percy",
was made into the Gujarati feature film Percy in 1989; he wrote the screenplay
and dialogue. It won the National Award for Best Gujarati Film in 1989, as well
as a Critics' Award at the Mannheim Film Festival.