Author Khalid Jawed’s “The Paradise of Food”, translated by Baran Farooqi from Urdu, won the 2022 JCB Prize for Literature on 19 November 2022. This was the fifth edition of the JCB Prize for Literature.
2022 JCB Prize Money:
- Jawed received the prize money of Rs 25 lakh along with a trophy — a sculpture by Delhi artist duo Thukral and Tagra, “Mirror Melting”.
- Baran Farooqi also received an additional Rs 10 lakh for the award.
About Book:
- The book, originally published as “Ne’mat Khana” in 2014, is the fourth translation to win the award and the first work in Urdu.
- “The Paradise of Food” tells the story of a middle-class Muslim joint family over a span of fifty years. As India – and Islamic culture – hardens, the narrator, whose life we follow from boyhood to old age, struggles to find a place for himself, at odds in his home and in the world outside.
2022 JCB Prize: The 2022 Shortlist
- A shortlist like none other in the award’s history, which only included translation, also featured International Booker-winning novel “Tomb of Sand” by Geetanjali Shree (translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell) and “Imaan” by Manoranjan Byapari (translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha).
- It was also for the first time that titles in Hindi and Nepali made it to the shortlist of the literary award.
- The shortlist also included debut books — ‘Song of the Soil” by Chuden Kabimo (translated from Nepali by Ajit Baral) and “Valli” by Sheela Tomy, (translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil).
About JCB Prize:
- The JCB Prize for Literature is a Rs 25-lakh award presented each year to a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian author.
- Authors shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature receive Rs 1 lakh, their translators (if any) Rs 50,000.
- The winning author receives Rs 25 lakh; if the winning work is a translation, an additional Rs 10 lakh is awarded to the translator.
- The Prize aims to celebrate Indian writing, and to help readers across the world discover the very best of contemporary Indian literature.
- The award was instituted by the JCB Literature Foundation, a not-for-profit company, in 2018.
- The Prize is funded by JCB, the global construction equipment manufacturer, and administered to the highest standards of integrity by the JCB Literature Foundation.