Rahul Bhattacharya Wins British Fiction Prize

Young Indian writer Rahul Bhattacharya Tuesday won the prestigious Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize 2012 for his book, "The Sly Company of People Who Care".

Announcing the winner, judge Nick Laird said: "On almost every page there were little stylistic twists or felicities which had me stopping to admire them."

The Ondaatje Prize is an annual award for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry evoking the spirit of a place. It is awarded by Britain's Royal Society of Literature, the society said.


Bhattacharya's first work of fiction last year won the Hindu Literary Prize for best fiction. It was also shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2011 and Commonwealth Book Prize 2012.

The shortlist for the Ondaatje Prize included Julia Blackburn's "Thin Paths", Teju Cole's "Open City", Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts' "Edgelands", Olivia Laing's "To the River" and Tim Robinson's "Connemara".

The entries were judged by Nick Laird, Michele Roberts and Kamila Shamsie.
Bhattacharya's book is a diaspora novel that follows a young Indian journalist's adventures when he quits his job to take a year off in Guyana.

He discovers a country of epic indolence, lush rain forests and decaying houses where an array of alluring characters, Indian and African, have made a new world.

Among the motley crowd of seasoned rogues and samaritans, people trying to escape or accept their colonial legacies, he falls for Jan, a sexy 'cooliegal', who transports him to a new place -- within himself and in the world.

Bhattacharya, born in Mumbai in 1979, lives in Delhi. He writes on cricket in publications such as the Wisden and Cricinfo.