Jhumpa lahiri’s The lowland, which narrates the tale of two estranged brothers with different ideologies of life, has won the DSC Prize for South Asian literature 2015. The news of the win was announced by Random House India.
“I had published this book with the apprehension that I had not done justice to the time and events that inspired the story. I am therefore particularly proud of this prize,” said the author after her win. lahiri beat Bilal Tanweer’s The Scatter Here Is Too Great, The Mirror of Beauty by Shamsur Rahman Faruqi, Romesh Gunsekera’s Noontide Toll and Kamila Shamsie’s A God In Every Stone.
The fifth edition of the DSC Prize was judged by a diverse and distinguished jury comprising eminent members from the international literary fraternity — Keki N Daruwalla, leading Indian writer and poet and chair of the DSC Prize jury, John Freeman, author, literary critic, Maithree Wickramasinghe, a professor of English at the University of Kelaniya, Sri lanka and the University of Sussex and an expert on gender studies, Michael Worton, Emeritus professor at the University College london, who has written extensively on modern literature and art, and Razi Ahmed from Pakistan who is the founding director of the annual, not-for-profit lahore literary Festival.
The last four years have had winners from three different countries in South Asia — HM Naqvi from Pakistan (Homeboy, Harper Collins, India), Shehan Karunatilaka from Sri lanka (Chinaman, Random House, India), Jeet Thayil from India (Narcopolis, Faber & Faber, london) and Cyrus Mistry from India (Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer, Aleph India).