The Lost Flamingos of Bombay
The Lost Flamingos of Bombay Man Asian Literary Prize 2008Author Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi finds himself in the long list for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008. It is an annual prize and is in its second year of existence.
On the news of his nomination, Siddharth states, "Nominations and awards recognise books not authors, so I'm overjoyed for the novel. I'm equally buzzed to share the long list with authors as abundantly talented as Amit Varma and Sarayu Srivastava; I hope to applaud them to the shortlist."
The Lost Flamingos of Bombay epitomises the essence of Mumbai. As Siddharth says, "Lost, beautiful, fragile lives shimmy up to Mumbai and even when they have a choice to leave this heinous city, they stay; no one embodies this more than the flamingos, which could leave the city with the flap of a wing. The fatal attraction for Mumbai is an overriding theme in the book. Stylistically, the novel is utterly unlike The Last Song of Dusk, although familiar themes of love's betrayal and the promise of art's redemption continue to animate the work; besides, this book is keenly political, which Last Song... never was."
Also on the list is Chennai-based author Tulsi Badrinath for Melting Love. "It is always nice to have one's work appreciated. Writing is done in solitude, so at the end of the process it is wonderful to have people read the work and respond to it," she says.
Melting Love narrates the story of an honest curator Harihar Arora at the Madras Museum who pawns a rare gold coin in his custody to meet the expenses of his daughter's wedding. When the finance company in which he has invested the money collapses, the drama unfolds.
Chinese writer Jiang Rong won the inaugural prize with his work Wolf Totem. He was selected from a final shortlist of five. The long list of 21 works (which includes works by Anjum Billimoria, Kaveri Nambisan, Sumana Roy, Vaibhav Sainy, Rupa Krishnan, Michael Syjuco, Yu Hua, Alfred A Huson and others) will be assessed by a panel of judges, post which the shortlist will be released in October 2008. The winner will be declared on November 13 in Hong Kong.
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Siddharth's "Flamingo" is no doubt a stylish narrative. But as a plot it has nothing very engrossing about it; rather it gives a feeling of a collage with its appeal not very apparent from the first look of it. Sometimes, because of its acerbic style, it appears to follow the usual route some of the Indian authors follow to be liked by western authors--say like saying about Indian corruption--but at the end of the day, the book will be known for its style which is very intimate and evocative.
ReplyDeleteI've attempted a review of the book in my blog. You may perhaps like to have a look.
Thanks.
Nanda
http://ramblingnanda.blogspot.com