Author Pankaj Mishra Wins Coveted $75K Weston International Award

Early this week, Indian writer Pankaj Mishra won the 2024 Weston International Award. The $75,000 award is given to an international non-fiction writer based outside Canada by The Writer’s Trust of Canada. “Through a compelling and essential body of work that braids memoir, philosophy, history, sociology and criticism, Mishra proves he is a master of disassembling and uplifting magmatic argument and pressing issues of identity, nationalism and belonging,” said the jury in a press statement.

Pankaj Mishra is noted for contributing articles to newspapers and magazines such as The Guardian, New Yorker, London Review of Books, Bloomberg, and more. Mishra has a BCom from Allahabad University and an MA in English literature from the Jawaharlal University. An average guy! Many would argue. But he has been serious and committed to his vocation.

His writing ambition began to take shape when he shifted to a Himalayan village Mashobra in 1992. It was a small hut with a tin roof. During the rainy season, the young writer would not know how to interpret the rain drops on his tin roof. He has come a long way since those initial uncertain days.

Now he splits time between London and Mashobra. At 55, Mishra who began his career as just another guy bitten by the writing bug has an impressive portfolio of books written by him. His has a social, economic, political perspective that transcends class and echoes across continents.

His books include Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India (1995), The Romantics (2000), An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World (2004), Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet and Beyond (2006), From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia (2012). A Great Clamour: Encounters with China and its Neighbours (2013), and Age of Anger: A History of the Present (2017).

Pankaj Mishra is not one of those writers who take a flight of fancy or choose a rare malady resting deep inside us to interpret. He is an everyday writer picking up everyday issues and unravels the truth that hide in plain sight.

Meanwhile, 26-year-old writer from Mumbai, Sanjana Thakur, has won the 2024 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Sanjana’s story “Aishwarya Rai” was chosen as the best among 7,359 entries globally. The story is about mothers and daughters and in her story a young woman seeks to hire an ideal mother.

Talking about how she got the idea for her story, Sanjana says in an interview, “The idea started out as a store for mothers, actually, where you could buy mothers off the shelf based on their features, characteristics, aesthetics. Then it evolved, of course, turning into a shelter from where you could adopt different mothers.”

Another Indian writer who is making ripples at the global level is 35-year-old game-designer and writer Lavanya Lakshminarayan. She has been shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for her debut novel, a science fiction, The Ten Percent Thief.

“I was scrolling Twitter, barely paying attention to what I was scrolling past. I had to look at it thrice for it to make sense,” the Bengaluru and Hyderabad-based writer told Vogue India. “I don’t think it has registered truly yet. It’s an immense honour that you don’t expect to come your way. Maybe in a dream somewhere.”

Lakshminarayan describes her book as a “gameified universe,” placing her work in the tradition of dystopian classics like George Orwell’s 1984, Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World, and Philip K. Dick’s oeuvre. While acknowledging her international influences, she also credits Indian author Samit Basu. “I remember reading The Simoqin Prophecies as a teenager and thinking, ‘Finally, characters with Indian names!’ Until then, everyone was an Edmund, Lucy, or John,” she recalls.

Yet another writer of Indian descent has gathered recognition at the international level. Indian-British journalist Madhumita Murgia’s book Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI has been shortlisted for the 2024 inaugural Women’s Prize for Non-fiction. Six books including Murgia’s book has been shortlisted for the prize. Code Dependent was published by Picador and released I India in March. The book explores the impact of AI (artificial intelligence) on human society. (IPA Service)