 "JCB Prize 2018: Benyamin's Malayalam novel Jasmine Days announced winner")
Benyamin’s Jasmine Days, translated from Malayalam to English by Shahnaz Habib, was declared the winner of the inaugural JCB Prize for Literature at the award ceremony held on 24 October, 2018. The author received a sum of Rs 25 lakh and Habib was also awarded a prize of Rs 5 lakh. Jasmine Days is the story of a young Pakistani woman, Sameera, who works as a radio jockey in an unnamed West Asian country and bears witness to the 2011 Arab Spring.
Benyamin wins the first JCB Prize for Literature with Jasmine Days translated by Shahnaz Habib. #JCBPrizeWinner pic.twitter.com/l0pLrHItWA
— The JCB Prize for Literature (@TheJCBPrize) October 24, 2018
Other works shortlisted for this award, which especially focuses on translations in a bid to take excellent regional works to readers, included Perumal Murugan’s Poonachi, Anuradha Roy’s All the Lives We Never Lived, Amitabha Bagchi’s Half the Night is Gone and Shubhangi Swarup’s Latitudes of Longing. In its first edition, the jury for the JCB prize comprised of film director Deepa Mehta, Rohan Murty, novelist and playwright Vivek Shanbhag, translator and expert in Indian classical languages Arshia Sattar and author Priyamvada Natarajan. Benyamin, who has authored over 20 books, has previously been honoured with the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for his work, Aadujeevitham (Goat Days). Originally written in Malayalam, Jasmine Days was launched in 2014. Accepting the JCB prize, helmed by Rana Dasgupta, Scroll.in quoted Benyamin as saying, “Every serious novel is an enquiry into the marginalised brethren within us.” Also read: Benyamin on his new book Jasmine Days, writing about the Arab Spring and the beauty of Malayalam
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