Perumal Murugan’s Pyre fails to make the International Booker shortlist

Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s novel Pookuzhi, translated into English as Pyre, failed to make the shortlist for the International Booker Prize 2023.

Tamil writer Perumal Murugan’s novel Pookuzhi, translated into English as Pyre, failed to make the shortlist for the International Booker Prize 2023. It is one of the 13 novels that found a place in the longlist for the prize.

“It is a great journey. Making the longlist itself is a great achievement as it helped in popularising the novel and publishers promoted it with the sticker about its place in the longlist,” Mr. Murugan told The Hindu. 

Translated into English by Aniruddhan Vasudevan, the novel exposes the ugly face of casteism that destroys the life of inter-caste couple Kumaresan and Saroja.

Mr. Murugan said he was not disappointed since three of his novels — Poonachi or The Story of a Black Goat and Arthanari and Alavayan — together were shortlisted for the JCB Prize, carrying a cash award of ₹25 lakh. He received ₹1 lakh for making the shortlist in 2018.

Poonachi also made the longlist of the National Book Awards for Translated Literature (2020) in the U.S.

His novel Koolamadhari, translated into English as Season of the Palm, was shortlisted in 2005 for the Kiriyama Prize, which was established in 1996 to recognise outstanding books about the Pacific Rim and South Asia.