DNA-OUT of
PRINT Short Fiction: The Winners
The
entries for this year’s DNA-OUT of PRINT short fiction special were
exceptionally strong and we had a difficult time narrowing down the lists at
every stage of the reading. We are thrilled to announce the final four stories
of the feature.
The stories on the final list not
only have remarkable inherent merit but also, approach the theme of this year’s
feature, Dissent, in different and
interesting ways. In bhavani’s A Fragrance
That Could Have Been, dissent is woven through the narrative: a child
rebels, society does not follow quotidian rules, and the system is challenged
as a sensitive young woman attempts to mentor across societal divides. R K
Biswas’ The Rabbit, a story of
rebellion, guilt and reckoning is skilfully worked around a father-son thread;
memories and sentiments are brought to the fore by the manifestation of a
rabbit from the past. Zui Kumar-Reddy the winner of the 2015 feature has the
most direct approach to the theme in her 1977;
dedicated to her grandmother, the iconic Snehalatha Reddy, and referencing the
Emergency, the story examines the meaning and the repercussions of political
dissent from a deeply personal space. Karthik Shankar’s Appa’s Scooter looks at the perturbations that tear at the fibre of
a conventional family when one among them expresses their identity with
uncompromising clarity. A trans grandson, an insular neighbourhood, and a
neglected scooter drive this story.
Other stories stand out: Shabnam
Nadiya’s Spin, a delicately rendered
study of the tough moment when the seed of dissent is planted; Trisha Bora’s The Guests, with its subtle, personal
complexities of multiple rebellions; Kulpreet Yadav’s story of a wild and
symbolically bloody breaking free…. We are tempted to list every story on the
shortlist … and many more. We thank every author who sent in a story, and
congratulate the ones whose stories have been chosen for publication.
bhavani
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R K Biswas
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Zui Kumar-Reddy
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Karthik Shankar
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Judges: Out of Print editors, Ram Sadasiv, Leela Levitt, Indira
Chandrasekhar
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