Muse India Young Writer Awards 2016 declared

The annual ‘Muse India-Satish Verma Young Writer Award’ for 2016 goes to three writers, a poet and two novelists. Muse India is a reputed literary ejournal of 12 years standing with membership from over 50 countries.

It isdedicated to Indian literature either originally in English or by way of translation from regional languages. Instituted in 2011, the Muse India Young Writer award was given away for 2011 and 2012.

From 2015 with the sponsorship received from Satish Verma, an Ajmer based poet and social worker who runs a holistic therapies centre (SewaMandir), the award has been renamed. The award is aimed at recognising and rewarding outstanding literary talent among writersup to 35 years of age.

While the poetry prize goes to Goirick Brahmachari (New Delhi) for his work ‘For the Love of Pork’ (Les Editions du Zaporogue, Denmark); the fiction prize goes to two joint winners – Karan Mahajan (Delhi) for his novel ‘The Association of Small Bombs’ (HarperCollins); and Radhika Maira Tabrez (Rae Bareilly) for her novel ‘In the Light of Darkness’ (Readomania). The three winners will receive Rs 10,000 each.

The runners up are A Reshma (Trivandrum) for her poetry work ‘I Am’ (Writers Workshop); and Anandamayee Singh (student at University of California, Los Angeles) for her novel ‘As it happened in 1942’ (OM Books).

The judges for poetrywere Ambika Ananth and Charanjeet Kaur, both editors of Muse India; while those for fiction were Prof S Mohanraj (EFLU), Prof Jayashree Mohanraj (EFLU) and BS Prakash (noted actor in English plays).

The enthusiastic participation by a large number of budding writers is a pulse onthe contemporary themes and trends in writing.