If are you tired of quarantine and chill, it is perhaps the time for #QuarantineAndRead and if you are on board, we have some good news for all you bookworms out there. The JCB Prize for Literature, a literary award in India, has collaborated with Kindle India to make its entire longlist from the past two years available at a reduced price.
Under this initiative, novels like Roshan Ali’s Ib's Endless Search for Satisfaction, Rajkamal Jha’s The City and the Sea, Mukta Sathe’s A Patchwork Family, Amitabha Bagchi’s Half the Night is Gone, Kiran Nagarkar’s Jasoda, Anuradha Roy’s All the Lives We Never Lived as well as the winning novels from the last two years - Madhuri Vijay’s The Far Field (2019) and Benyamin’s Jasmine Days (2018) - are available at a discount that ranges between 40 to 70%.
Keeping in mind the impact of a global lockdown on the publishing industry, the initiative is to support the publishing industry while also introducing readers to some of the finest and latest Indian novels.
“From a writer's mind to your Kindle screen, a book passes through many hands. In these uncertain times, let us support those in the publishing industry - the printers, distributors, designers, editors and production personnel - who work so hard to bring a book to life. And most of all, let us support the writers whose words bring joy and hope to your homes,” says Mita Kapur, Literary Director, The JCB Prize for Literature.
Aligning with the foundation’s core mission to promote Indian literature and making literary works more accessible and inclusive, books originally written in regional languages are available in both their original and translated versions. The discount is available only for the month of April.
Additionally, The JCB Prize for Literature has also initiated an ongoing online series on its Instagram channel (@thejcbprize), under which, Indian authors interact with readers and aspiring writers and participate in a stimulating conversation about the world of fiction and reality. The coming days would see Roshan Ali (April 15), Perumal Murugan (April 18), Paul Zacharia (April 20) and Sharanya Manivannan (April 22) interacting with the audience.