The winner of the 2024 Shakti Bhatt Prize has been announced. Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, the winner for his body of work, writes poetry, drama and fiction in both Khasi and English. His latest novel, The Distaste of the Earth, has been longlisted for the 2024 JCB Prize for Literature.
Nongkynrih, who is from Meghalaya, wins a cash award of Rs 2 lakh. The prize is privately-funded, independent, and administered by a group of writers. This is the 15th year of the prize, which was started in the memory of the late writer and editor Shakti Bhatt.
The Scroll review of Nongkynrih’s debut novel, Funeral Nights, says: “It is that rare book which defies the lines that the publishing world has been toeing for some time: the one where books are slotted into genres and pegged on this thing or that. So is this 1007-page tome a work of fiction or non-fiction? Is it a collection of stories stitched together into a narrative? Is it a fictionalised autobiography, given that the author’s published poems are referred to in the narrative, not to mention the many similarities between the author and the narrator?”
In Poetry International, Arundhathi Subramaniam has described Nongkynrih’s poetry thus: “He regards Khasi as the language of his tribe and English as the language that enables him to reject isolationism.” According to the citation, “His poetry holds a kind of lucid romanticism, when he speaks, in ‘Temple’, of discovering that love is not the tremors of the flesh, but stillness, and confiding how best to protect your heart in ‘The Fungus’, where the title says it all, and in ‘Self-Actualisation’ that he is a heretic, “since I believe in the humanity of my conscience”.
According to the Scroll review of The Distaste of the Earth, “Nongkynrih makes it clear from the outset that his novel is not historical fiction, but a fabrication of an ancient world of kings, queens, drunkards and paupers. Yet his writing is inlaid with thick descriptions of the culture, morality, vices and conventions that ruled Khasi society. Part One of the novel is set almost entirely in Nongbah, the capital city of Hima Mokkhiew. The natural landscape is described as a flat land, surrounded by either forests or hills, girdled by little streams – making a perfect setting for civilisation. Nongkynrih chooses to introduce the people of Nongbah through a single shop in the town complex: Lyngkien’s pata. Lyngkien, a 36-year-old buxom beauty, runs this drinking den where people from all strains of the community flock.”
Nongkynrih’s awards include the Northeast Poetry Award (2004), the Veer Shankar Shah-Raghunath Shah National Award (2008), a Tagore Fellowship (2018), The Bangalore Review June Jazz Award (2021) and the Sparrow Literary Award (2022). He teaches literature at Northeastern Hill University, Shillong. His forthcoming books in Khasi include Ki Sawangka Shi Bynta (one-act plays), and Ka Shithi Sha Sahit (his fifth collection of poetry).
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