Delhi-based writer gets Ondaatje prize

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Shahid Kapoor dances with children during the promotion of his film Teri Meri Kahaani on the sets of a TV show in Mumbai

NEW DELHI-BASED former cricket journalist Rahul Bhattacharya was on Monday night awarded the Ondaatje prize, administered by the Royal Society of Literature, in London. The £10,000-prize is awarded annually to a “distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place.” He won the prize for his debut novel, The Sly Company of People Who Care, which is set in Guyana. Bhattacharya is famous for his book on cricket, Pundits from Pakistan, about cricket competition between India and Pakistan, which was placed fourth in The Wisden Cricketers’ list of best cricket books of all time.
Novelist and poet Nick Laird, novelist Michèle Roberts and Pakistani writer Kamila Shamsie comprised the jury for this year’s prize, which included Julia Blackburn’s Thin Path; Teju Cole’s Open City; Edgelands by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts; Olivia Laing’s To the River and Tim Robinson’s Connemara in the six-book shortlist.