Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 1: “Red Maize”, a novel written by Inspector General of Police (IGP), Jammu Zone, Danesh Rana today bagged Tata Literature Live! First Book Award during a function held at Mumbai.
The Tata Literature Live! First Book Award recognizes new talent in the Indian literary space across the fiction and non-fiction genres. Mr Rana has bagged award in fiction category. The other two nominees in this category were— “The Devourers” by Indra Dass and “Don’t Let Him Know” by Sandip Roy.
The Tata Literature Live! brought together an eclectic mix of over 120 celebrated writers and thinkers, and literature lovers, from more than 14 countries across the world. Performances – plays, performance poetry, dances based on stories and poetry, and storytelling with music – were integral part of the festival.
In a grim portrait of a conflict in Kashmir valley, Danesh Rana in his novel “Red Maize” has depicted the painful nuances of a colossal human tragedy. He has drawn his characters from the common stock of the farmers, the extremists and the Army. There are no heroes in the story unless one considers the heroic suffering of a woman Kausar Jan. The author shows that real tragedy does not stop at the frontiers of the imaginable but, in Kausar Jan’s life, proceeds inexorably towards the inevitable; that slide will end in crash.
Several of the characters in the book talk about the vicious circle spun by the conflict wherein, even as one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter, killing leads to killing and triggers more vengeance and vendetta until there is no goal or direction, only mindless justifications for violence.
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