Author Raghu Karnad bags Yale University's Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction

Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Prize was announced on the eve of 13 March, 2019 in London with Delhi-based journalist Raghu Karnad taking home the winner’s purse in the non-fiction category for his debut novel, Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War. This 2015 work spanning several countries traces the story of three Indian men from the same family fighting in World War II.

Along with Karnad, American writer Rebecca Solnit was honoured with the prize for non-fiction for her collection of essays ranging from politics to feminism and literature. The Windham-Campbell Prize, one of the world’s most generous winner’s purses for literature, awards each of its winners $165,000 to support their writing. For this edition, the eight writers were announced live from London for the award which does not follow the traditional process of submitting one’s work. Writers are nominated and judged anonymously and it is not until the director, Michael Kelleher, calls up the winners that they discover that they have been considered for the prize.

The Windham-Campbell Prizes were set up in 2013 following writer Donald Windham’s significant contribution to the prize in memory of his partner Sandy Campbell, “to call attention to literary achievement and provide writers working in English with the opportunity to focus on their work independent of financial concerns.”

Find the full list of winners below:

Drama

Patricia Cornelius (Australia)

Young Jean Lee (United States)

Poetry

Kwame Dawes (Ghana/Jamaica/United States)

Ishion Hutchinson (Jamaica)

Fiction

Danielle McLaughlin (Ireland)

David Chariandy (Canada)

Non-fiction

Rebecca Solnit (United States)

Raghu Karnad (India)