Indian-American Author Akhil Sharma wins 2016 International Dublin Literary Award

Indian American author Akhil Sharma won the prestigious 2016 International Dublin Literary Award for his semi-autobiographical novel “Family Life.”
His novel was shortlisted out of an initial 160 nominations by a panel of judges of award that included novelists Ian Sansom, Juan Pablo Villalobos and Carlo Gebler.
Family Life is Sharma’s second novel and took him 13 years to write. The novel traces the journey of a family that emigrates from New Delhi to New York, where one brother is left severely brain-damaged after a tragedy strikes.

About Akhil Sharma

• Sharma was born in New Delhi. Later he had immigrated to US along with his family in 1979.
• His first novel was An Obedient Father published in 2000. It has won the prestigious PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award in 2001.
• His stories also have been published in The New Yorker and in Atlantic Monthly. These stories have been included in The Best American Short Stories and also in O. Henry Prize Collections.
• Awards and honours: In 2007, he was named as one of Granta magazine’s Best of Young American Novelists. His second novel Family Life had won the prestigious 2015 Folio Prize.

About International Dublin Literary Award

• The International Dublin Literary Award is an annual international literary award awarded for a novel written in English or translated into English.
• The aim of the award is to promote excellence in world literature. It is solely sponsored by the Ireland’s capital city Dublin.
• The award is richest literary prizes in the world and carries monetary prize of 100,000 euros. If the winning book is a translation then prize is divided between the writer and the translator.

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2016