Author Khalid Jawed’s ”The Paradise of Food”, translated by Baran Farooqi from Urdu, gained the fifth JCB Prize for Literature on Saturday.

The e book, initially revealed as ”Ne’mat Khana” in 2014, is the fourth translation to win the award and the primary work in Urdu.

”The Paradise of Food” tells the story of a middle-class joint Muslim household over a span of fifty years the place the narrator struggles to discover a place for himself, at odds in his residence and the world exterior.

Jawed obtained the prize cash of Rs 25 lakh together with a trophy — a sculpture by Delhi artist duo Thukral and Tagra, ”Mirror Melting”. Baran Farooqi additionally obtained a further Rs 10 lakh for the award.

Receiving the award, Jawed exclaimed he had by no means anticipated his e book would win this recognition. ”We search for happiness each single day and in numerous corners of our world. But it’s at the moment that I’ve felt the true happiness. I wrote this novel in 2014 and it’s at the moment that it has been recognised,” he stated.

Jawed added it was due to Farooqi’s talent of transporting his world into one other world that the novel has been recognised for the award.

The winner was chosen by a panel of 5 judges, consisting of journalist and editor AS Panneerselvan, writer Amitabha Bagchi, author-academician Rakhee Balaram, translator-historian J Devika and writer Janice Pariat.

Talking in regards to the successful work, Panneerselvan stated it’s ”a celebration of human spirit, hope, loss, aspirations, and nervousness”. ”It is a tremendous inventive achievement the place aesthetics negotiate a tough political trajectory that’s haunting our nation. The carnivalesque aspect makes this a contemporary fable,” the jury head added.

A shortlist like none different within the award’s historical past, which solely included translation, additionally featured International Booker-winning novel ”Tomb of Sand” by Geetanjali Shree (translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell) and ”Imaan””by Manoranjan Byapari (translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha).

It was additionally for the primary time that titles in Hindi and Nepali made it to the shortlist of the literary award.

The shortlist additionally included debut books — ‘Song of the Soil” by Chuden Kabimo (translated from Nepali by Ajit Baral) and ”Valli” by Sheela Tomy, (translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil).

Each of the shortlisted authors additionally obtained Rs 1 lakh, and the translators Rs 50,000. The award was instituted by the JCB Literature Foundation, a not-for-profit firm, in 2018 to advertise the artwork of literature in India.

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