New Delhi: Mumbai-based writer Jerry Pinto is among this year's nine recipients of the Windham-Campbell Prizes at Yale University for literary achievements.
The winners, chosen in three categories: fiction, nonfiction, and drama, will each receive USD 150,000 to support their work. Other recipients are: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (US), Hannah Moscovitch (Canada), and Abbie Spallen (Ireland, all drama); Tessa Hadley (UK) and C E Morgan (US, all fiction), and in nonfiction, Hilton Als (US), Stanley Crouch (US), and Helen Garner (Australia).
Pinto was selected in the fiction section for his novel "Em and the Big Hoom". The jury said his writing is deeply empathetic, humorous, and humane, drawing on personal experience to tell stories much larger than the lives they contain.
On "Em and the Big Hoom", it said, "This semi-autobiographical novel, which Salman Rushdie called 'one of the very best books to come out of India in a long, long time', tells the story of an unnamed narrator's slow, painful attempt to come to terms with his mother's bipolar disorder and suicidal tendencies".
"In addition to telling a persuasive coming-of-age story, Em and the Big Hoom' offers an acute exploration of the impact of mental illness on intimate relationships, as well as a window into the fraught lives of the Goan Christians of Mumbai," it said.
Established in 2013 with a gift from the late novelist Donald Windham in memory of his partner of 40 years, Sandy M Campbell, the prizes recognise writers from any country who write in English.
Past recipients include the late James Salter, Naomi Wallace, and Teju Cole. In 2017, the prizes will expand to include poetry. The recipients will gather at Yale in September for an international literary festival celebrating their work.
