Shahnaz Bashir

Shahnaz Bashir is a Kashmiri novelist and academic based in Srinagar, Kashmir.[1]

Shahnaz Bashir
OccupationNovelist, Essayist, Academic

Education and work

Shahnaz is a university gold medalist in media studies and teaches narrative journalism and conflict reportage at the Central University of Kashmir.[2]

Kashmir Life, in its Jan 2016 year-ender special issue, declared Shahnaz as "one of the eleven impact-makers from the entire population of Jammu & Kashmir".[3]

He is the South Asia juror for the first global journalism prize True Story Award [4] instituted in Bern, Switzerland. The Award is a high-profile journalism prize carrying 177,000 Swiss Francs and is to be given each year to best longform reportage published from all over the world.[5]

Critical acclaim

His debut novel The Half Mother (Hachette, 2014) won the Muse India Young Writer Award 2015.[6] A Marathi translation of The Half Mother was published in 2017 and the French version of the novel (La mère orpheline) was published by Editions du Rocher in Paris on 4 March 2020. The Half Mother is the first novel from Kashmir to be translated into a foreign (European) language.

Shahnaz Bashir's second book Scattered Souls (HarperCollins, 2016) was longlisted for "Tata Lit Live Award 2017" for Best Book - Fiction. It won The Citizen's "Talent of the Year Award 2017".[7] In April 2018, Kashmir Observer reported "Scattered Souls is the best-selling fiction book in Kashmir till date… Its sales [in the bookstores of Srinagar] have surpassed the other fiction titles by Kashmiri writers writing in English".[8] His works of fiction have been compared with Saadat Hasan Manto and Anton Chekov.[9] The Asian Age observed: "There are easy comparisons with Manto in the often-shocking glibness with which Bashir lays bare a character’s innermost feelings, or with Chekov in the rootedness of the characters to their circumstances."[10]

In 2017, Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council awarded him a writer's residency at Winterthur, Switzerland.[11]

Books
  • Scattered Souls (2016), ISBN 978-9352641246
  • The Half Mother (2014), ISBN 978-9350097885
  • The Disease (2020), forthcoming...

Book chapters
  • A Childhood to Insurgency (Ethnographic essay), A Desolation Called Peace–Voices from Kashmir (2019), ISBN 978-9353570057
  • The Gravestone, A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces (2016), ISBN 978-9382277293
  • A Crackdown in Natipora, Of Occupation and Resistance–Writings from Kashmir (2013), ISBN 978-9383260010

Awards
  • Shamim Ahmad Shamim Memorial-Kashmir Times Award 2007
  • Muse India Young Writer Award 2015 for The Half Mother
  • The Citizen's Talent of the Year Award 2016-17
  • Scattered Souls Longlisted for Tata Lit Live Award Best Book Fiction 2017
  • Pro-Helvetia Swiss Arts Council Writer's Residency Award 2018
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References
  1. Naqushbandi, Ubeer http://thepunchmagazine.com/the-byword/interviews/i-prefer-writing-to-affect-my-relationship-with-life-at-large-shahnaz-bashir The Punch Magazine Retrieved 30 September 2018
  2. Academia profile https://www.cukashmir.ac.in/faculty_profile.aspx?sid=39&did=24&pag=558&id=71 Retrieved 30 September 2018
  3. Raafi, Muhammad https://kashmirlife.net/award-winning-author-shahnaz-bashirs-scattered-souls-launched-122155/. Kashmir Life . Retrieved 24 October 2018
  4. https://truestoryaward.org/
  5. https://www.truestoryaward.org/jury/member/shahnaz-bashir
  6. https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/kashmir/shahnaz-bashir-s-the-half-mother-declared-winner-of-muse-india-award/204796.html. Greater Kashmir Retrieved 20 October 2018
  7. https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/srinagar-city/novelist-shahnaz-bashir-wins-talent-of-the-year-award/243357.html Greater Kashmir Retrieved 30 September 2018
  8. https://kashmirobserver.net/2018/04/24/scattered-souls-is-the-best-selling-fiction-book-in-kashmir-till-date/
  9. http://www.asianage.com/books/220117/a-snapshot-of-kashmir-with-a-time-and-date-stamp.html. Asian Age Retrieved 30 September 2018
  10. https://www.asianage.com/books/220117/a-snapshot-of-kashmir-with-a-time-and-date-stamp.html
  11. Author Shahnaz Bashir awarded Swiss writer’s residency https://kashmirreader.com/2017/12/20/author-shahnaz-bashir-awarded-swiss-writers-residency/ . Kashmir Reader Retrieved 30 September 2018
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