Authors shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2023 reveal why writing is both personal and political

The Established, in conversation with the authors shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2023, explores the politics of the different worlds that live and grow inside the minds of the writers

In   its   sixth   year,   the   JCB   Prize   for   Literature announced its shortlist for 2023 featuring authors whose writing traverses a range of themes—from Dalit and Adivasi lives, to a roman-à-clef on a master craftsman from the Mughal era, and a world of stories in between.

This year’s jury comprised writer-editor Somak Ghoshal, and surgeon and writer Kaveri Nambisan, while it was chaired by author and translator Srinath Perur. The prize recognises Indian fiction writers who have successfully captured the essence of the country’s trials, tribulations, and social and intellectual landscapes across time and space, with this year’s shortlist of five featuring The Secret of More by Tejaswini Apte-Rahm (Aleph   Book Company, 2022); The Nemesis by Manoranjan Byapari, translated from the Bengali by V. Ramaswamy  (Westland Books, 2023); Fire Bird by Perumal Murugan, translated from the Tamil by Janani Kannan (Penguin Random House India, 2023); Mansur by Vikramajit Ram (Pan Macmillan India, 2022); and I Named my Sister Silence by Manoj Rupda, translated from the Hindi by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (Westland Books, 2023).

In a freewheeling conversation with The Established in Jaipur, the authors spoke about their books and shared their views on literary cultures and trends.

Bringing the Past Alive

With Apte-Rahm’s book, we step back in time into a colonial Bombay, when the textile and film fraternities nestled in its heart were akin to budding “cottage industries,” as Rahm points out; they were slowly but surely coming into their own to ultimately lend the city its character. “The city rewards ambition and risk-taking. There’s a certain mythology of Bombay where your dreams can come true, and that’s really where I took off from, coupled with the fact that it’s very rare for people in Bombay to be fully content; everybody always wants more, which has very little to do with how much you already have,” she says about her debut novel, which is a Bombay novel, no less.

Speaking of dreams, but in an entirely different vein, is Vikramajit Ram’s Mansur—a master artist from the court of Mughal emperor Jahangir, who occupies a veritable dreamscape that Ram brings alive through his word imageries. A trained artist from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, the Bengaluru-based writer has worked as a graphic designer for many years, besides also authoring travelogues and books on architecture. His artist’s spirit is evident in his illustrative descriptions of the Mughal era, during which there was an increased emphasis on beauty.

However, despite the fact that the book deals with real people from history, it is a work of fiction. “When you’re working with real people, in real times, for a novelist, it’s a huge responsibility, and a daunting one, because you are channelling in energies, which, in this particular case, are some 400 years old, and you need to respect that,” he says, referring to his book that is laid out like a miniature painting resembling the ones the Mughals were known for, where smaller stories play out in the foreground of a larger one.

On Lives and Identities

Ram’s book is also about identities of people long forgotten, as is Perumal Murugan’s Fire Bird, which lends us a peek into the ever-evolving materialistic life of modern times, and the changing patterns of society in the Kongunadu region in Tamil Nadu, unique for its heavily language-driven identity. The novel is a depiction of a crisis that stems from rapidly changing power structures, accompanied by the fall of old feudal as well as traditional caste and oppressive systems, as seen through the lenses of a young farmer and his family. In this novel, like all of his past works, Murugan draws heavily from his own life. “In general, my literary perspective is to probe and explore the human mind. I think that is the basis of my writing. While doing so it is inevitable that I get into the personalities of the characters I write about,” he says. “How the habitat and the circumstance of a character creates their personalities and influences their behaviours, how and why they react that way—to analyse, that is my work. I can also perceive the personalities of any of my characters as my own. I think as a writer, one should get trained to do that. Since I already have such practice, it is possible for me to do this.”

Byapari agrees with Murugan. As one of the handful Dalit writers from West Bengal, where, ironically, caste is not viewed as a bone of sociopolitical contention, he cannot help but notice this glaring lacunae that is entirely driven by caste and identity. So, for a writer such as him—who is also the chairperson of the Dalit Sahitya Academy of the state—it is imperative to invest in honest characters that speak of truths from the margins to the best of their ability. For Byapari, it’s a shade more personal since The Nemesis, the second part of his Chandal Jibon Trilogy, is semi-autobiographical. The book sees the protagonist, Jibon, dodder through the volatile years of young adulthood in east India, with his caste almost entirely shaping his life experiences. “In the 1980s, I would publish my writing under the pseudonym of Madan Dutta, an upper-caste person, because I was afraid of revealing my true identity. But then I had to go on a television show, and couldn’t hide my identity anymore, and I came out as a Dalit writer. There was backlash, but I fought on, and here I am today,” he says about his experiences and ideologies that inform much of his works.

Interestingly, however, writer Manoj Rupda claims to refrain from letting his personal views seep into his writing, even when his prose revolves around the lives of Adivasis, whose identities are among the most politicised in the country. So how does he accomplish that? “My point is, if you are writing fiction, your characters should be able to convey your stance; the narrator’s voice shouldn’t be doing that,” he says. “If you want to give a political commentary, write an op-ed in a newspaper.” His book I Named My Sister Silence is designed like a bildungsroman, following a young Adivasi boy, an unnamed narrator, and his sister in Bastar in Chhattisgarh, whose seering silence asks the deepest questions on the plight of their people and the profound relationship they share with their land.

Watch The Established in conversation with the shortlisted authors for the JCB Prize for Literature 2023

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