For an author, the first book is always special. Acknowledging and supporting this sentiment is the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize, launched in 2008 in memory of young author Shakti Bhatt to encourage budding writers across the sub-continent. Now, in its 9th year, The Shakti Bhatt foundation has come up with its shortlist for 2016, curated by poet and author Jeet Thayil and author Arshia Sattar. The three judges Samanth Subramanian, Mahesh Rao and Janice Pariat will choose from these six book titles and will select a winner in November. Here’s a guide. * Manu S Pillai's 'The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore' literally mines the treasure troves of history. In the book, Pillai chronicles the story of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, the maharani regent of the southern princely state of Travancore and reminds us that what we call history is the life of another, separated from us in time but not in temperament. * Madhu Gurung's 'The Keeper of Memories' stays true to its evocative title. Through remembered lives, legends, rites and rituals, the book infuses the historical migration of the Gorkhas into north-eastern India with a keen though entirely unsentimental family intimacy. * Nisid Hajari's 'Midnight's Furies' reveals the underbelly of India's cataclysmic Partition through private letters, official communiques, personal relationships and bureaucratic inertia. Hajari shows that our understanding of the past must be periodically refreshed if we are to carry its lessons meaningfully into the present. * Sophia Khan's 'Yasmeen' also searches the darker corners of loneliness within a family. Cradled in the routine of the quotidian, there are so many words unsaid, so many smiles that never reach the eyes, so many tears that splash into cups of coffee that seeking answers in the past does not always provide comfort. * Akshay Mukul's 'Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India' masterfully details how a small regional press and a determined individual ideologue can influence the mind-set of a nation, reconstruct a religion and seed the politics of separatism that flowers nearly a century later. * The short stories in Kanishk Tharoor's 'Swimmer Among the Stars' are testament to the fact that for a new generation of internationalised writers, the world truly is their oyster. Story traditions, languages, histories and memories from every corner of the globe are the nacre that cover the grains of sand and smooth them into pearls.
