Amitav Ghosh and Neel Mukherjee shared the award for English Fiction category while Manohar Shyam Joshi bagged the best in Indian Language Fiction award. The Popular Book Award was won by author Pallavi Aiyar for her book ‘Smoke & Mirrors’.
This year, 176 valid entries were received for the 3 main categories of Vodafone-Crossword Book Awards and the selection process took several months of reading, deliberation and discussion before the three panels made their selections.
Basharat Peer’s selection came as no surprise. His book, Curfewed Night, had been critically acclaimed in India. A memoir of the author’s life in Kashmir, the book published in India by Random House was termed “brutally honest and deeply hurtful” by renowned author and journalist Khushwant Singh.
Curfewed Night is considered to be the first Kashmiri narrative of the two decade long violent conflict in Kashmir. Through the stories of ordinary people, the author tells a candid account of life of fear when search operations, crackdowns and disappearances in valley were frequent.
Peer, 32, started his journalism career in 2000 with Rediff.com. He revisited Kashmir in 2003 to work on his book. Later he joined the prestigious Columbia University for a postgraduate Journalism programme and contributes regularly to leading publications like UK based Guardian and leading Gulf newspaper The National. He has also served as assistant editor in New York based magazine Foreign Affairs.
The international version of Curfewed Night shall be published by publishing house Scribner.
This year, 176 valid entries were received for the 3 main categories of Vodafone-Crossword Book Awards and the selection process took several months of reading, deliberation and discussion before the three panels made their selections.
Basharat Peer’s selection came as no surprise. His book, Curfewed Night, had been critically acclaimed in India. A memoir of the author’s life in Kashmir, the book published in India by Random House was termed “brutally honest and deeply hurtful” by renowned author and journalist Khushwant Singh.
Curfewed Night is considered to be the first Kashmiri narrative of the two decade long violent conflict in Kashmir. Through the stories of ordinary people, the author tells a candid account of life of fear when search operations, crackdowns and disappearances in valley were frequent.
Peer, 32, started his journalism career in 2000 with Rediff.com. He revisited Kashmir in 2003 to work on his book. Later he joined the prestigious Columbia University for a postgraduate Journalism programme and contributes regularly to leading publications like UK based Guardian and leading Gulf newspaper The National. He has also served as assistant editor in New York based magazine Foreign Affairs.
The international version of Curfewed Night shall be published by publishing house Scribner.
