Friday, December 01, 2006

The Man Asian Literary Prize, and the Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award

Two announcements about awards, one to do with literary excellence, the other for work done to improve the quality of public life in India.

The Man Group plc, sponsors of the Booker Prize, announces the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize for a previously unpublished work of Asian fiction in English or English translation. The closing date for submissions is March 31, 2007, and first prize is $10,000. Submission guidelines are available here.

And the Manjunath Shanmugam Trust, set up in the memory of the upright Indian Oil sales officer who was murdered in November last year after coming in the way of the oil mafia, announces the Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award to honour those "working to uphold the values of truth and honesty in the Indian public life". Among the other important initiatives this Trust has taken is the launch of a National Right To Information Act Helpline recently to spread knowledge about the Right To Information Act, passed by the Indian government last year and the most powerful tool available now to the Indian citizen to fight corruption. All Indian citizens are allowed to nominate deserving parties for the award by December 19, 2006 latest. More details about the award can be found here.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chandrahas,

Thank you for announcing this. A minor quibble: the last link doesn't work.

Anonymous said...

Don't much care for prizes. Post something! (What are you working on right now, by the way?)

Chandrahas said...

Confused - Thanks for that. It's either fixed now, or else unfixable. I've tried my best, as I always do, except when I'm a bit...now I've forgotten what I was saying...oh, except when I'm a bit distracted.

Anirudh: Lovely variation in your remarks - there is a simple sentence there, an imperative, and a question, all in seventeen words, which reminds me once again that I should stop writing such long sentences, sentences that seem to go on forever and, just when they look like they're going to end, jump over a wall and start off once again, attaching clause to clause with commas the way the carriages of a train are linked all the way down from the engine.

Speaking of trains, I'm taking one to Kolkata tomorrow to attend a wedding, so it might be a few days before I post something, because I'll be leaving my books behind, and most of the books you get in the secondhand bookshops in Kolkata, which are all I can afford in my present precarious penurious predicament, are about Lenin and Marx. The food in Kolkata is good and cheap though.

I am working on my look - for the wedding - and otherwise on my book.

Anonymous said...

Working on a look for a wedding? I believe bharat matrimony offers excellent tips on that;)
A Bit of Company in the Evenings
P.S.: I'll never stop ragging you about this.

Anonymous said...

Is it a novel? Would love to read a book of literary criticism in your characteristic handwriting ... was reading Coetzee's book of essays ... reminded me of your writing ...

Anonymous said...

Books on Marx and Lenin, I don't mind; Jamshedji and Ratanji, I do.

Chandrahas said...

Bit of Company, and Amit - No matter how much I try to limit discussion on this blog to serious and sober thoughts about literature, you people keep running off on tangents and asking all kinds of questions. Anyway, a chap must humour his friends, I suppose, otherwise what's the point of life?

Whose wedding? Certainly not my own, and once that's established, all weddings are one and the same. I spent all of last evening dutifully taking photographs of the bride, the groom, and the guests, and sneaking off whenever possible to eat the shammi kababs doing the rounds upon the outstretched arms of worldweary waiters. So burdened, I did not manage to talk as much as I had hoped to various beauties flitting around. One should be invited to a wedding every week.

Anonymous said...

what a delightful, timely string of comments! you are invited to my wedding on 27th december. 4 hrs from kolkata - 'jamshed'pur. get yourself another invite for the vacant week in between, then your weekly penchant should be taken care of. hee.

Chandrahas said...

Swar - What excellent news. Having returned to Bombay, I am now more than four hours away from Jamshedpur so, much as I want to turn up, it may not quite be possible.

But I thank you for your kind invitation, and all the thousands upon thousands of readers of the Middle Stage join me in the warmest good wishes for you. Enjoy your big day!