The 2024 JCB Prize for Literature longlist named ten novels: five originally written in English and five translated into English. The translated books came from Bengali, Marathi and Malayalam; four titles were described as debut novels, including two translations. Five longlisted novels later advanced to the shortlist.
What is the JCB Prize for Literature?
The annual prize recognizes a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian author. The JCB Prize for Literature selects ten books for its longlist, five for its shortlist, and then a winner. The official prize information describes the award as Rs 25 lakh. The 2024 jury was chaired by author, translator and poet Jerry Pinto, with scholar and translator Tridip Suhrud, art historian and curator Deepthi Sasidharan, filmmaker and writer Shaunak Sen, and artist Aqui Thami. The prize’s official page gives its remit and posted schedule.
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All 10 novels on the 2024 longlist
The descriptions below identify each book’s subject and setting; they are not rankings or reviews.
| Novel | Author and language | Translator and publisher | What it explores |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chronicle of an Hour and a Half | Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari; originally written in English | Context/Westland | A storm-struck village in the Western Ghats is engulfed by violence after an affair rumor spreads through feverish WhatsApp messages. |
| Hurda | Atharva Pandit; originally written in English | Bloomsbury India | A journalist revisits the disappearance of three schoolgirls from a Maharashtra village. Intersecting voices examine misogyny. |
| Of Mothers and Other Perishables | Radhika Oberoi; originally written in English | Simon and Schuster India | A dead woman’s memories and her daughter’s present-day story connect family history, Delhi politics, advertising and betrayal. |
| Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life | Upamanyu Chatterjee; originally written in English | Speaking Tiger Books | Italian Lorenzo moves from an accident and religious searching to a Benedictine monastery and an ashram in Bangladesh, where service and love complicate his vocation. |
| The Distaste of the Earth | Kynpham Singh Nongkynrih; originally written in English | Penguin India | A layered fictional history of Khasi kings, queens and warriors, told through human and animal perspectives, considers power, justice, love and people’s relationship with the earth. |
| Talashnama: The Quest | Ismail Darbesh; translated from Bengali | V Ramaswamy; HarperCollins India | Riziya returns to a West Bengal village after a history of love, elopement, rumor and social condemnation. |
| Maria, Just Maria | Sandhya Mary; translated from Malayalam | Jayasree Kalathil; HarperCollins India | After her grandfather’s death, Maria chooses to stop speaking. She recounts her unusual Kerala family and her efforts to find a place in the world. |
| Sanatan | Sharankumar Limbale; translated from Marathi | Paromita Sengupta; Penguin India | Bhimnak Mahar and his descendants experience caste oppression across changing historical periods. Myth and history help the novel rewrite Dalit history. |
| Leaf, Water and Flow | Avadhoot Dongare; translated from Marathi | Nadeem Khan; Ratna Books | Multiple voices, including an Adivasi woman formerly part of a Maoist dalam and a “professional revolutionary,” engage with power structures and conflict. |
| The One Legged | Sakyajit Bhattacharya; translated from Bengali | Rituparna Mukherjee; Antonym Collections | Folklore, a child’s experience and a haunted old house frame a story of secrets, grief and loss. |
Which titles are translations, and in what languages?
Five of the ten longlisted novels were translations: two from Bengali, two from Marathi and one from Malayalam. The other five were originally written in English. The report also says the books submitted for consideration included translations from seven languages; that describes the wider submission pool, not the longlist’s five translated titles. Scroll’s September 2024 longlist report identifies the authors, translators and languages.
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Which books were debut novels?
Four longlisted books were described as debuts, including two translated works. The longlist report does not identify all four titles as debuts individually, so the list above should not be used to infer which specific books those were. Submissions represented writers from 16 states, according to the same report; this is a figure for submissions, not for the ten selected novels.
Which longlisted novels reached the shortlist?
Five titles advanced: The One Legged, Chronicle of an Hour and a Half, Sanatan, Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life and Maria, Just Maria. Three of those five shortlisted books were translations. In its October 23, 2024 report, Scroll reported that the jury praised Chatterjee’s novel for asking questions that “cannot be answered easily” and described Sanatan as combining “a scholar’s attentiveness and an activist’s passion for rewriting Dalit history.”
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What were the 2024 announcement dates?
The official prize page posted September 2 for the longlist announcement, October 20 for the shortlist and November 18 for the awards ceremony. Contemporary Scroll coverage reported a different planned shortlist date, October 23; its October 23 follow-up confirms the shortlist was released that day. The official schedule and later reporting therefore differ on the shortlist date. The sources cited here do not establish a verified winner announcement date.
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