British-Indian novelist Rana Dasgupta has won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book for his novel Solo and Glenda Guest won Best First Book for Siddon Rock.
Rana DasguptaThe judges said they chose Solo for "its innovation, ambition, courage and effortlessly elegant prose. A remarkable novel of two halves, this is a book that takes risks and examines the places where grim reality and fantastical daydreams merge, diverge, and feed off each other. Solo, the judges concluded, is a tour de force, breathtaking in its boldness and narrative panache."
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Rana Dasgupta said he was surprised that he won the highly coveted £10,000 Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
"I am not the kind to win awards. I am a writer who writes more for myself — it’s an intensely personal thing. To see that striking a chord is not something I had counted on,” said Dasgupta.
Solo is Rana Dasgupta's second novel and it has been given favourable reviews by leading literary pundits. His first novel was Tokyo Cancelled.
Solo is ... utterly unforgettable in its humanity.
- Kapka Kassabova, The Guardian.
What a delight to find a novelist unfazed by the 21st century ... This is an important work. Already it's my tip for the Man Booker this year.
- Nigel Krauth, The Australian.
Solo is a nuanced and virtuoso performance.
- Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday.
Solo is beautifully symphonic - elegiac and prophetic, underpinned by intelligence, compassion and a wonderfully unfettered imagination. It’s a necessary as well as a timely novel.
- Joanne Hayden, Sunday Business Post.
... a surreal history of massive proportions ... Dasgupta's writing is a revelation ... The back cover lauds the book as "a devastating and rapturous novel". It is. I'm still shaking.
- Matt Bowler, The Nelson Mail.
Winner of the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, "Solo" recounts the life and daydreams of Ulrich, a one hundred year-old blind man from Bulgaria:
In the hour before they retired, the silence claimed his mother too, and Ulrich relaxed into contentment. While the ball of wool twitched with her knitting, his attention drifted from his books and spiralled into his own recesses, where old faces coasted past like comforting submarine monsters, and fine filaments lit up a route to the future. He came to find solace in these daydreams, and on the days when he did not have an opportunity to cultivate them, he went to bed quite unsatisfied.
Solo is an exquisite book, one of the best I’ve read all year; but trying to encompass why is quite difficult, because it could go in so many directions ... The contrast between the novel’s two parts is ... well-handled and subtle. It’s not simply that one depicts failure and the other success. It’s that, in life, one of Ulrich’s obsessions caused so much tragedy — chemistry destroyed his marriage, poisoned his country, took his sight; but, in his daydreams, it is Ulrich’s other obsession, music, that brings so much joy. And it’s that Ulrich’s memories, being somewhat hazy and episodic, feel much like daydreams; whilst his daydreams have a structure that make them feel more like reality (come to think of it, isn’t that often the way in our own lives?).
- David Hebblethwaite.
Prizes are important, because just as writers need to be read, they also need to be fed.
~ Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for External Affairst the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Awards Ceremony in India on April 12, 2010.
