Thayil's Narcopolis was part of a shortlist of six works which included Jamil Ahmed's The Wandering Falcon, Tahmima Anam's The Good Muslim, Amitava Ghosh's River of Smoke, Mohammed Hanif's Our Lady of Alice Bhatti, Uday Prakash's The Walls of Delhi (translated into English by Jason Grunebaum).
The Booker long-list nomination came as a surprise to Kerala-born poet-novelist Jeet Thayil who says his selected novel Narcopolis, which talks of opium dens and heroin addiction in Mumbai, is a secret history of the city.
Thayil, the author of 'Narcopolis' and winner of the Sahitya Akademi Award, will join his fellow judges to look for the best works of translated fiction, selected from entries published in the UK and Ireland between May 2019 and April 2020.
Indian author Jeet Thayil's debut novel 'Narcopolis' is among five other works shortlisted on Wednesday for the $30,000 Man Asian Literary Prize.
Indian writers Jeet Thayil, Anjali Joseph and Benyamin were on Tuesday named in the Man Asian Literary Prize longlist of 15 authors which also figure Nobel winner Orhan Pamuk.
Three Indian writers are in the running for the $50,000 (about Rs 27,50,000) DSC South Asian literature prize given to the best novel thematically linked to the South Asian region.
Indian writer an Jeet Thayil's first novel Narcopolis, described as a compelling tale of Mumbai's hazy world of opium addiction, has made it to the six-author shortlist for the Man Booker Prize 2012 announced on Tuesday.
Kerala-born Thayil, a former India Abroad/rediff.com staffer, is the only Indian writer in this year's long-list that includes known writers such as Will Self and Hilary Mantel.
Indian author Jeet Thayil's debut novel on the dark underside of Mumbai's opium dens is in race for this year's prestigious Man Booker prize, which British authors Will Self and Hilary Mantel are said to be the favourites to win.
Indian writer Anuradha Roy on Saturday won the prestigious $50,000 (Rs 33.89 lakh) DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for her novel Sleeping on Jupiter at the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka.
Reticent author Cyrus Mistry on Saturday beat off stiff competition from five other writers to become the fourth winner of the $50,000 DSC prize for South Asian literature for his book "Chronicles of a Corpse Bearer".
The going has never been easy for author Cyrus Mistry, who suffers from a nervous disorder. The reclusive author, who bagged the prestigious South Asian literature award, talks openly to P B Chandra about his illness and how writing has helped him cope with it.
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