New Delhi: Moustache, authored by Malayalam writer S. Hareesh and translated to English by Jayasree Kalathil, has won the 2020 JCB Prize for Literature. The winner was announced by JCB chairman Lord Bamford in a virtual ceremony.The prize, worth Rs 25 lakh, is one of the most prestigious literary awards in India. The 2020 shortlist comprised five books – Moustache, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara, Chosen Spirits by Samit Basu, Prelude to a Riot by Annie Zaidi and These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light by Dharini Bhaskar.A jury of four chose this year’s winner. Cultural theorist and author Tejaswini Niranjana, the chair of the jury, said, “Moustache is a fine work of Indian fiction by a highly regarded Malayalam author whose work is now coming into English translation. Hareesh engages in an agile and deeply insightful way with the caste and gender equations of the Kuttanad region in this intricate and highly readable story. Jayasree Kalathil’s translation of the novel is fluent and energetic. She conveys the specificity of the context without missing the wood for the trees.”The other jury members were writer and translator Aruni Kashyap, playwright and director Ramu Ramanathan, and head of the arts and culture portfolio at Tata Trusts Deepika Sorabjee.Also read: The Meaning of Despair in Louise Glück’s Poetry“I think Moustache will be discussed for sure for its representation of caste politics, magic realism or folklore, the community, history of an underrepresented region called Kuttanad; but I will remember this book for its daring storytelling. I’m delighted that an unruly novel, a misbehaving novel that defies our conventional understanding and expectations of what a novel should be, is taking this prize,” Kashyap said.Hareesh has won a host of prizes in the past, including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award, Thomas Mundassery Prize, and the VP Sivakumar Memorial Prize.In 2018, the Malayalam version of his novel Moustache, Meesha, was serialised on Mathrubhumi. However, he decided to stop the publications because of threats to him and his family from BJP and RSS affiliated groups. “I am too weak to fight against the people who rule the country. I have decided to withdraw my novel because of the threats and attacks against me and my family,” he said then.Last year, the award went to Madhuri Vijay for her debut novel, The Far Field.
