Indian author Prajwal Parajuly has made it to the shortlist of France’s Emile Guimet Prize 2020, the Astier-Pecher Literary & Film Agency announced in a press release on Thursday. Parajuly was named a finalist for Fuir et revenir, the translation of his widely-acclaimed novel Land Where I Flee.
The prize is administered by the Emile Guimet Museum in Paris, and is awarded annually to a book by an Asian author translated into French.
Land Where I Flee is about four Nepali-Indian siblings who return to Gangtok from various parts of the world to celebrate their formidable grandmother’s 84th birthday. Parajuly, who is originally from Gangtok, is himself the son of an Indian father and a Nepali mother. He now lives in New York and Kolkata.
Parajuly work has in the past been shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in the United Kingdom and longlisted for The Story Prize in the United States. He was also featured on the Oprah Book Club in South Africa and was a judge for the Dylan Thomas Prize.
Numerous publications around the world, including The Independent, The Kansas City Star and the Hindustan Times have called Land Where I Flee the “Book of the Year”. However, for the Emile Guimet Prize, it would have to compete with novels by Chinese author Fang Fang, Japan’s Shion Miura and Izumi Shiga, and Tibet’s Tsering Dondrup.
The winner will be announced in late November at a ceremony held in the Emile Guimet Museum in Paris. Previous winners of the award include British-Indian writer Rana Dasgupta, South-Korean author Hwang Sok-Yong and Japan’s Natsu Miyashita.
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