School dropout wins top literary award

By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram

Anees Salim, a school dropout, has won The Hindu Prize for Best Fiction 2013 for his second novel Vanity Bagh.

The jury picked him for “consistent writing and humour and imagination.”

Born at Varkala town in southern Kerala, Salim spent most of his adolescent days travelling across India, seeing places and meeting people.

He has published four novels in quick succession. 

His publisher received the award on behalf of the author, who leads a reclusive life in the port city of Kochi, at a function held in Chennai this week.

After chasing publishers in vain for two decades since he completed his first book Vicks Mango Tree at the age of 22, his life changed when three of his manuscripts were picked up by major publishers in the same month.

Salim, now 42, has written four novels and is currently writing his fifth, the newspaper said.

“The book (Vanity Bagh) moved all of us. The consistency of writing style, the way he brings out characters, imagination and humour moved us all,” said jury member Timeri N Murari.

“The book is a very comic account of a young man from a minority group from a place called Vanity Bagh, also called Little Pakistan. It is about physical cities, both real and imagined,” Murari said. “There is a lot of humour in the book that runs through it. It is philosophical and liberating.”

In his acceptance speech, Salim said the book was an “acknowledgement of the ugliness in the world we live in, the invisible fences we build, the booby traps we set.”

“The book is not about hope. It is about hopelessness. More than anything else, it is about distress and religious intolerance that can divide humanity and win elections,” he said in the speech, read out by his publisher Pranav Kumar of Picador.

Salim dropped out of school and ran away from his hometown while studying in Class XI. He travelled throughout India and returned home after he fell ill and started work on Vicks Mango Tree.

“This moment will remain with me forever. And this moment will make writing a harder task for me,” he said.