Award for Murugan's novel hounded by Hindutva ragtag

Tamil writer Perumal Murugan has been selected for the ILF Samanvay Bhasha Samman for his novel ‘One Part Woman’ (Madhorubhagan), which put the writer in the eye of a storm after fringe Hindutva groups objected to the work.

This year’s award was decided by a jury chaired by K Satchidanandan and that included Sachin Ketkar, Manglesh Dabral, Mitra Phukan and Arundhati Subramaniam, after a detailed process focussing on the five languages – Tamil, Marathi, Bangla, Dogri and Mizo. The previous winners of the award, constituted in 2012, are Ashok Vajpeyi (2014), Chandrakant Topiwala (2013), Sitakant Mahapatra (2012).

Announcing the award, poet Satchidanandan said, “Murugan’s Madhorubhagan is a rooted and passionate work of fiction that narrates with searing intensity and unsparing clarity the story of a relationship caught between the dictates of social convention and the tug of personal anxieties.”