Archive for December, 2009

Wasafiri is a literary magazine at the forefront of mapping new landscapes in contemporary international literature today. In over 25 years of publishing, it has continued to provide consistent coverage to Britain's diverse cultural heritage and publish a range of diasporic and migrant writing worldwide. ‘Wasafiri’, the Kiswahili word for travellers, captures our vision to focus on writing as a form of ‘cultural travelling’. Since Wasafiri was first published in 1984, it has consistently aimed to shift the contours of established literary canons and extend the borders of international contemporary writing, creating imaginative spaces and publishing some of the most promising new literary voices.

Ian Rankin, Michael Frayn, Claire Tomalin, Geoff Dyer and Shrabani Basu are all now confirmed for Lit Sutra activity taking place in January and February 2010 in India and Sri Lanka.

Watch this space!

Delhi-based Mridula Koshy’s remarkable collection of short stories If It is Sweet (Westland-Tranquebar) is the winner of the 2009 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. She receives Rs 1 lakh and a trophy which will be presented by author/television anchor Sagarika Ghosh in New Delhi on December 14, 2009 at the British Council.

The other shortlisted titles this year were:

Arzee the Dwarf, Chandrahas Choudhury (HarperCollins); Hotel at the End of the World, Parismita Singh (Penguin); Eunuch Park, Palash Krishna Mehrotra (Penguin); Baulsphere, Mimlu Sen (Random House), and Atlas of Impossible Longing, Anuradha Roy (Picador).

The 2009 panel of judges was novelist Rana Dasgupta, editor Mukund Padmanabhan and writer/film-maker Arshia Sattar. Last year's winner was Pakistani author Mohammed Hanif for A Case of Exploding Mangoes.

The Shakti Bhatt Foundation is a non-profit trust set up by the late writer/editor's family to keep her memory alive. It wishes to reward first-time authors of all ages.

Of Glance and Lotus Hand, the British Council's booklist for this year's India 09 : Through Fresh Eyes programme, is available as a pdf download.

The booklist covers a wide range of classic and contemporary titles from Indian literature and many of the featured writers took part in the British Council's Cultural Programme for the 2009 London Book Fair.

Of Glance and Lotus Hand can be downloaded here.

Confluence magazine published an article this summer about the India: Through Fresh Eyes programme of which Lit Sutra is the British Council's legacy work.

An introduction from the Confluence editor, Joe Nathan: