Dear Friends, Goa Arts + Literature Festival 2014 (goaartlitfest.com) will host four of the five finalists for the inaugural Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry, the winner of which will be announced at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival next year. See attached article.
Do not miss the opportunity this December to hear/see/meet Ranjit Hoskote, Keki Daruwalla, Sridala Swami and Arundhathi Subramaniam (and several other wonderful poets) right here in Goa at GALF 2014. Viva! VM ---- http://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/five-poets-in-the-running-for-khushwant-singh-prize/article6489639.ece Five poetry collections short-listed for the inaugural Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry were announced at the Kasauli Literature Festival on Friday. The award will be given away at the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival in January. Among those short-listed is Escape Artist by Sridala Swami, which the jury describes as “a diviner’s eloquent testimony to survival in a world of dissolving certitudes, precarious relationships, transcontinental mobility and political cataclysm.” In Ranjit Hoskote’s Central Time, the author “becomes the storyteller of a turbulent epoch. We meet Ovid and Ghalib, poets in exile or in eclipse.” When God is a Traveller, a collection by Arundhati Subramaniam, contains “poems of wonder and precarious elation, about learning to embrace the seemingly disparate landscapes of hermitage and court, the seemingly diverse addresses of mystery and clarity, disruption and stillness.” Fire Altar by Keki N. Daruwalla is a journey in search of roots, meaning and religious and social understanding. Selected Poems by Joy Goswami (translated by Sampurna Chattarji) includes an interview with the poet, introducing the English reader to a language that is powerful, inventive and often enigmatic. The Rs. 2-lakh prize, established earlier this year by Suhel Seth, is open to Indian poets writing in English or in any Indian language and translated into English. “The Khushwant Singh Prize aims to promote poetry across all Indian languages in celebration of the genre that was very close to his heart,” Mr. Seth said after announcing the names. The selection was made from among nominated books of poetry by a single author published in a year from September 15, 2013.