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Manoranjan Byapari

Manoranjan Byapari writes in Bengali. Till his recent appointment as chairman of the newly instituted Dalit Sahitya Akademi in Bengal, he was working as a cook at the Hellen Keller Institute for the Deaf and Blind in West Bengal. Interrogating My Chandal Life, the English translation of his memoir, won the Hindu Prize for non-fiction (2018), and There’s Gunpowder in the Air, the translation of his novel, was shortlisted for several prizes in 2019, including the JCB Prize for Literature. He received the Suprabha Majumdar Prize (2014), the Sharmila Ghosh Smriti Literary Prize (2015). The Runaway Boy (2020) is the first book of his Chandal Jibon trilogy.
Year: 2021