Khalid Jawed’s wins the 2022 JCB Prize for Literature

Author Khalid Jawed’s “The Paradise of Food”, translated by Baran Farooqi from Urdu, won the fifth JCB Prize for Literature. The book, originally published as “Ne’mat Khana” in 2014, is the fourth translation to win the award and the first work in Urdu. “The Paradise of Food” tells the story of a middle-class joint Muslim family over a span of fifty years where the narrator struggles to find a place for himself, at odds in his home and the world outside.

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Jawed received the prize money of Rs 25 lakh along with a trophy, a sculpture by Delhi artist duo Thukral and Tagra, “Mirror Melting”. Baran Farooqi also received an additional Rs 10 lakh for the award. The winner was selected by a panel of five judges, consisting of journalist and editor AS Panneerselvan, author Amitabha Bagchi, author-academician Rakhee Balaram, translator-historian J Devika and author Janice Pariat.

JCB Prize for Literature 2022: Key points

• A shortlist like none other in the award’s history, which only included translation, also 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 also for the first time that titles in Hindi and Nepali made it to the shortlist of the literary award.
• The shortlist also 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 also received Rs 1 lakh, and the translators Rs 50,000.
• The award was instituted by the JCB Literature Foundation, a not-for-profit company, in 2018 to promote the art of literature in India.

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