Megha Majumdar’s ‘A Guardian and a Thief’ is a finalist for $150,000 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction

The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction is awarded annually to women and non-binary writers for a work of fiction. The Prize is open to writers across the world but the book needs to have been published in Canada and the United States. The winning author will receive a cash prize of $150,000 and a five-night stay at Fogo Island Inn. The four finalists will be awarded $12,500 each.

The winner and four finalists will also participate in a group retreat residency in the Leighton Artist Studios, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada.

Indian-origin writer Megha Majumdar’s novel, A Guardian and the Thief, has been shortlisted for this year’s Prize. The novel is set in a near-future Kolkata beset by flooding and famine. Majumdar paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of two families, each operating from a place of ferocious love and undefeated hope, each discovering how far they will go to secure their children’s future as they stave off encroaching catastrophe.

The jury said that “[the] harrowing yet captivating novel fills us simultaneously with horror and compassion. Set in a dystopian Kolkata battered by poverty, starvation and severe climate change, it drags readers from complacency and forces them to face what can happen to our values when our dearest ones are stalked by disaster. Through trenchant images, deft character creation, and breathtaking plot-twists, Majumdar embroils us in the lives of Ma and Boomba until we are no longer sure who is the guardian and who the thief.”

This year’s nominees were chosen by a Jury of writers chaired by Carmen Maria Machado, Ivan Coyote, Cherie Dimaline, Chitra Divakaruni, and Deesha Philyaw.

The winner will be announced on June 2.

Here is the complete shortlist:

• Hellions, Julia Elliott (Tin House)

• The White Hot, Quiara Alegría Hudes (One World)

• Cannon, Lee Lai (Drawn & Quarterly)

• A Guardian and a Thief, Megha Majumdar (McClelland & Stewart, Canada; Knopf, USA)

• Lion, Sonya Walger (New York Review Books)