announcing the longlist for the 2013 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature:

Along with the longlist for the Man Asian Literary Prize (not yet, but soon), the novels on the DSC Prize longlist have provided me with long, continuous hours of excellence in reading.  These two prizes are my favorites in the literary world, but today the spotlight's on the DSC Prize, and the longlist has been announced. For more information, I refer you to the DSC Prize website, but here are the contending titles.  The ones highlighted in color are those I've already read. 

1. Jamil Ahmad: The Wandering Falcon (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin India)
   
   
2. Alice Albinia: Leela’s Book (Harvill Secker, London)
   
   
3. Tahmima Anam: The Good Muslim (Penguin Books)
   
   
4. Rahul Bhattacharya: The Sly Company of People Who Care (Picador, London / Farrar Strauss and Giroux, New York) -- already on this year's favorite books shelf
   
   
5. Roopa Farooki: The Flying Man (Headline Review/ Hachette, London
   
   
6. Musharraf Ali Farooqi: Between Clay and Dust (Aleph Book Company, India)
   
   
7. Amitav Ghosh: River of Smoke (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin India) -- also on this year's favorite books shelf
   
   
8. Niven Govinden: Black Bread White Beer (Fourth Estate/ Harper Collins India)
   
   
9. Sunetra Gupta: So Good in Black (Clockroot Books, Massachusetts)
   
   
10. Mohammed Hanif, Our Lady of Alice Bhatti (Random House India)
    
    
11. Jerry Pinto: Em and the Big Hoom (Aleph Book Company, India)
    
    
12. Uday Prakash: The Walls of Delhi (Translated by Jason Grunebaum; UWA Publishing, W. Australia)
    
    
13. Anuradha Roy: The Folded Earth (Hachette India)
    
    
14. Saswati Sengupta: The Song Seekers (Zubaan, India)
    
    
15. Geetanjali Shree: The Empty Space (Translated by Nivedita Menon; Harper Perennial/ Harper Collins India)
    
    
16. Jeet Thayil: Narcopolis ( Faber and Faber, London) -- on this year's Man Booker Prize shortlist and on my shelf of favorite books for 2012. 
    
    
     I predict many well-spent hours of reading in my near future!  Congratulations to all of the authors and the publishers. 

update: all the unread books are now on their way to my house. Yay!