Jerry Pinto's "Em and The Big Hoom", Manu Joseph's "The Illicit Happiness of Other People" and Rahul Pandita's "Our Moon has Blood Clots" have been shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award 2013.
This was announced Wednesday by a panel comprising publishing consultant Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, authors Ravinder Singh, Anuja Chauhan and Vishwajyoti Ghosh and senior commissioning editor Vaishali Mathur.
"This award gives our readers a chance to connect and be a part of process of choosing their favourite authors. In turn, it also comes as great validation for the nominees who have been chosen based on popularity," Crossword Bookstores COO Kinjal Shah told IANS.
The literary award is divided into five categories -- original work in fiction, non-fiction, Indian language fiction translation into English, Indian children's writings and the popular award.
The winners will be announced in Mumbai in December.
The shortlist in Indian fiction category includes "Boats on Land" by Janice Pariat, "Difficult Pleasures" by Anjum Hasan, "Not Only the Things That Have Happened" by Mridula Koshy.
Making it to the non-fiction category are "The Butterfly Generation" by Palash Krishna Mehrotra, "The Price of Land" by Sanjoy Chakravorty, "Righteous Republic" by Ananya Vajpeyi and "From the Ruins of Empire" by Pankaj Mishra.
Some of the books shortlisted in children's category are "Moin the Monster Songster" by Anushka Ravishankar, "The Stupendous Timetelling Superdog" by Himanjali Sankar and "Wisha Wozzariter" by Payal Kapadia.
Each award carries a cash prize of Rs.300,000, a trophy and a citation. In case of the Indian language fiction translation category, the author and the translator share the prize money.
The popular award has a cash prize of Rs. 100,000 and a trophy.
