A hearty congratulations to my buddy Amit Varma of India Uncut for landing on the Man Asian longlist for his first novel, My Friend, Sancho. You’ll recall Amit also won the Bastiat Prize for free market journalism and was kind enough to drag me along to the party in New York.

My Friend, Sancho is set in 2008 Mumbai. Abir Ganguly, a young journalist on the crime beat, is asked by his editor to write a profile of Mohammad Iqbal, the victim of a police encounter. In the course of writing about another man’s life, his own is transformed. The reason is Iqbal’s daughter, Muneeza - or Sancho, as her father used to call her. [Link]

Selections were made on the basis of submitting at least 10,000 words. Amit is frantically finishing up the rest of the book. My reminder that Robert Louis Stevenson cranked out The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on a week-long cocaine binge somehow wasn’t taken as helpful

Authors were allowed to enter 10,000 words of their manuscript for the prize, and I made the longlist on the basis of my first three chapters. I need to submit my entire manuscript by August 1 to remain in contention for the prize, and I’m not quite done with it… [Link]

Siddharth Shanghvi goes from Last to Lost in his upcoming novel, whose title I assume refers to the vanishing pink flamingoes of Bombay’s Sewri Creek (photos, more):

A beautiful but twisted affair between a married older woman and a young photographer takes centre stage in The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, a sharp and ravishing examination of modern India’s perverse fascination with celebrity, the tension between public morality and private desire, and all the awful things we commit in the name of love. [Link]

Anjum Hassan (Lunatic In my Head) made the longlist for Neti, Neti:

Twenty-five-year-old Sophie Das has moved from Shillong to Bangalore in search of work, fun and liberty. Neti, Neti’s action follows an increasingly alienated Sophie and her free-spirited friends through offices, pubs, night streets, shopping malls, rock concerts, and the homes of Bangalore’s neo-rich. A shocking murder and an infatuation send Sophie back to the small town of her youth. [Link]

Hans Billimoria’s Ugly Tree liketh the Jedi:

Ugly Tree has two parallel story lines, a gospel story by the Judas character and the more contemporary tale told through the eyes of Jude Vanderhoven, a Sri Lankan Burgher that was christened Judas by his mother, Sad Mummy. The two stories converge amidst Jedi crones, talking trees, communal riots, half breed French nuns… [Link]

Daisy Hasan’s The To-Let House tackles insurgents in Shillong:

The To-Let House captures tells the story of the coming of age of Di, Lee, Kule and Addy. The tale unfolds in the city of Shillong, in the north east - one of India’s most troubled areas. As the four children emerge into adolescence, framed by the region’s violent search for identity, their inner and outer worlds hold uncanny mirrors to each other. [Link]

Also check out entries by Tulsi Badrinath, Abdullah Hussein, Rupa Krishnan, Kavery Nambisan, Sumana Roy, Vaibhav Sani, Salma, and Sarayu Srivatsa.

Related posts: Raas Leela, Dining with insurgents, Varma wins Bastiat, Kidrobot, and other scary tales (updated), A man, a plan, a candlestick: Varma, 1 across: Bookstore chain, The last refuge of cliché, The book review as self-parody