Fabulist writer Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih wins Shakti Bhatt award
Nongkynrih is a veteran poet, fictioneer, and critic, who has often drawn from the folk tales and legends of Khasi tribe.
His latest novel The Distaste of the Earth was recently longlisted for the prestigious JCB Prize for Literature 2024. (Express) The latest edition of the Shakti Bhatt award has gone to Meghalayan writer Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih. Known for writing about his tribe, Khasi, and his hometown, Sohra, described in his novel Funeral Nights (2021) as “the wettest desert on earth”, his latest novel The Distaste of the Earth was recently longlisted for the prestigious JCB Prize for Literature 2024.
The prize, started in 2008, in memory of the late editor and writer Shakti Bhatt, is awarded for a writer’s body of work. Nongkynrih is a veteran poet, fictioneer, and critic, who has often drawn from the folk tales and legends of his tribe, without being limited to “facile parochialism”, in the words of poet Arundhathi Subramaniam in a Poetry International essay. She adds, “He regards Khasi as the language of his tribe and English as the language that enables him to reject isolationism”.
Book covers of ‘Late Blooming Cherries’ and ‘Around the Hearth’. (Photos from Amazon books and Google books)
Book cover by “Funeral Nights'(Photo: Amazon books)
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