JCB Prize for Literature 2023 shortlist features three translations, four presses, a debut novel and debut translation

Fire Bird (Rs 499, Penguin Random House India) by Perumal Murugan (who has also been on the longlist thrice), translated from the Tamil by Janani Kannan, and Mansur (Rs 599, Pan Macmillan India) by Vikramajit Ram are also in. As is I Named my Sister Silence (Rs 499, Westland Books) by Manoj Rupda, translated from Hindi by debut translator Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (who has been on the longlist previously).

The winner of the Rs 25 lakh cash prize will be announced on November 18. If the winning book is a translation, the translator will win Rs 10 lakh. All writers on the shortlist have won Rs 1 lakh, and translators V Ramaswamy, Janani Kannan, and Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar have won Rs 50,000.

The jury comprises writer and translator Srinath Perur (chair), critic Somak Ghoshal, writer and surgeon Kavery Nambisan, playwright Mahesh Dattani, and journalist Swati Thiyagarajan. On the shortlist, Perur shared in a statement, “Every book on the longlist was a serious shortlist candidate for at least one jury member. But in the end, there were exactly five books that all five of us wanted on the shortlist. None of the books was easy to let go of, and those that made the cut did so by the jury’s unanimous decision.”

The longlist featured three debut novels and three writers returning to the list. The books that didn’t make it to the shortlist include The East Indian (Rs 499, HarperCollins) by Brinda Charry, The Colony of Shadows (Rs 499, Hachette) by Bikram Sharma,  Simsim (Rs 499, Penguin) by Geet Chaturvedi, translated by Anita Gopalan, Everything the Light Touches (Rs 499, HarperCollins) by Janice Pariat, and Manjhi’s Mayhem (Rs 399, Penguin) by Tanuj Solanki.

Last year’s prize was won by Khalid Jawed’s Paradise of Food (Rs 499, Juggernaut), translated from Urdu by Baran Farooqi.