Accents, mispronunciation and lack of eloquence have led people to underestimate the writing proficiency of Indians. It would be a shocking surprise for biased and prejudiced communities labouring under such illusions to learn that Indians being shortlisted or winning the Booker-McConnell Prize commonly known as the Booker Prize is not an unusual phenomenon. Few renowned Indian writers have bagged the prestigious title ‘Booker Prize winner’ not just once indicating that authoring distinctive pieces of composition is a cake walk. Anita Desai has been shortlisted at the Bookers for her post-partition novel ‘Clear Light of Day’ in 1980, for ‘In Custody’ in 1984 and for her bi-cultural novel ‘Fasting, Feasting’ in 1999. Controversial author Salman Rushdie’s books have not only been shortlisted three times (‘Shame’, ‘The Satanic Verses’ and ‘The Moor’s Last Sigh’) and won the title once with ‘Midnight’s Children’ but also won the ‘Booker of Bookers’ and ‘The Best of the Booker’ prizes as well! Rohinton Mistry who has authored three novels till today has been shortlisted for Booker all three times for his books ‘Such a Long Journey’ in 1991, ‘A Fine Balance’ in 1996 and ‘Family Matters’ in 2002. Besides these distinguished writers, Amitav Gosh, Jeet Thayil and U.R Anantamurthy were finalists for their respective books ‘Sea of Poppies’, ‘Narcopolis’ and Kannada book in 2008, 2012 and 2013. Other authors who are proud recipients of this title are Arundhati Roy for her debut ‘The God of Small Things’ in 1997, Kiran Desai for her second book ‘The Inheritance of Loss’ in 2006, Indra Sinha for ‘Animal’s People’ in 2007 and Aravind Adiga for ‘The White Tiger’ in 2008.
A Writer's Exposé 