Veterans Nayantara Sahgal and Kiran Nagarkar are among the 10 authors whose novels have found place in the inaugural JCB Prize for Literature longlist announced on Wednesday.
The prize, which carries a cash reward of Rs 25 lakh, the richest literary award in the country, was established earlier this year with the aim of enhancing the prestige of literary achievement in India and creating greater visibility for contemporary Indian writing.
The longlisted works for this year's award are "Half the Night is Gone" (Amitabha Bagchi), "Clouds"
(Chandrahas Choudhury), "Jasmine Days" (Benny Daniel/Benyamin), "Poonachi" (Perumal Murugan), "Jasoda" (Kiran Nagarkar), "All the Lives We Never Lived" (Anuradha Roy), "When the Moon Shines by Day" (Nayantara Sahgal), "Latitudes of Longing" (Shubhangi Swarup), "The Book of Chocolate Saints" (Jeet Thayil) and "Empire" (Devi Yesodharan).
The prize has a special focus on translation, and intends to introduce readers to works by Indian writers in different Indian languages.
The two translations in the longlist are "Poonachi" or "The Story of a Black Goat" (Tamil) and "Jasmine Days" (Malayalam).
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The jury, comprising film director Deepa Mehta, entrepreneur and scholar Rohan Murthy, astrophysicist and writer Priyamvada Natarajan, novelist Vivek Shanbhag, and author and translator Arshia Sattar, noted the "enormous diversity" of Indian writing.
"We read books by writers from 19 states, who wrote in eight languages about every conceivable subject. We noted the strong attention to Indian history and mythology, an increasing focus on themes of land, water and ecology, and some interesting experiments in genres such as science fiction," the jury said.
The final prize will be announced on October 27.
A shortlist of five works, each of which will receive Rs 1 lakh, will be announced on October 3.
In case the winning work is a translation, the translator will be awarded an additional Rs 5 lakh.
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