“riter Rohinton Mistry Wins $50K Neustadt International Prize
From News Dispatches
TORONTO – One of the Indian diaspora’s most acclaimed writers, Canadian novelist Rohinton Mistry, has won the prestigious $50,000 Neustadt International Prize for Literature for 2012, awarded for outstanding achievement in poetry, fiction or drama……..
Jury member Samrat Upadhyay nominated Mistry for the award, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation reported. “Mistry writes with great passion, and his body of work shows the most compassionate and astute observations of the human condition, making him one of the most exciting and important contemporary novelists writing in the English language,” said Upadhyay, the author of “Arresting God in Kathmandu” and “Buddha’s Orphans.”
University of Oklahoma officials announced Sept. 30 that jurors representing nine countries chose Mistry to receive the prize, the Associated Press reported.
The 59-year-old Mistry was born into the Parsi community in what is now Mumbai, and immigrated to Canada in 1975. He has a degree in mathematics but left his bank clerk job to become a full-time writer in the 1980s.
Mistry’s work attracted attention from the start. His 1987 collection of short stories, “Tales from Firozsha Baug,” included the highly popular story “Swimming Lessons.” His first novel “Such a Long Journey” (1991) won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for best book; and Mistry’s other works include “A Fine Balance” and “Family Matters.”……………”
