Writer Vinod Kumar Shukla wins 2023 PEN/Nabokov Lifetime Achievement Award

NEW: Short story writer, novelist, poet, and essayist Vinod Kumar Shukla—considered one of the greatest contemporary writers in the Hindi language—will be celebrated with the 2023 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. #PENLitAwards https://t.co/UizHfsFEdy pic.twitter.com/NIy7CAdU0M

— PEN America (@PENamerica) February 27, 2023

Shukla, whose works incorporate magic-realist elements and have won the Sahitya Akademi award and the Atta Galatta–Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize, was born on January 1, 1937 in Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh (then Madhya Pradesh). His first published work was a poetry collection Lagbhag Jai Hind (1971), followed by Vah Aadmi Chala Gaya Naya Garam Coat Pehankar Vichar Ki Tarah (1981). Naukar Ki Kameez was his first novel, adapted into a 1999 Hindi film by Mani Kaul, telling the story of a clerk in a government office who is found to fit into the shirt of a domestic help who runs away from his employer’s house. Forced to do errands outside his job description, the narrative follows his journey into the life of the upper class and the tensions that emerge therein.

Shukla also has an MSc in agriculture from Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya in Jabalpur and has lectured in the same. His works frequently tackle issues of class and wealth and the lives of the poor navigating a capitalist world. One of his latest story collections, Blue is like Blue (2019), translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Sara Rai, explores characters who live in one-room apartments and fear being swindled by electric companies. Mahavidyalaya (2022) is a collection which discusses the conflicts between nature and humanity and how literature can rescue both. The novel A Silent Place (2021), translated by Satti Khanna, narrates a forest silenced by exploitation, and the journey of a few kids within who seek to enliven it again.

Described by comedian and past host of the awards, Seth Meyers, as “the Oscars for books”, the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature is given annually to a living author “whose body of work is of enduring originality and consummate craftsmanship.” Previous winners include Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Anne Carson, M. NourbeSe Philip, Sandra Cisneros, Edna O’Brien, and Adonis.

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