The editors would like to thank all who participated. The prize winning entries for NAW Short Story Competition 2020 are:
Siddhartha Gigoo for his short story Elephant’s Tusk.
A retired mountaineer’s decision to sponsor a partially blind girl’s trip to the summit of Mount Everest costs him the greatest discovery of his life.
Siddhartha Gigoo is a Commonwealth Prize-winning author. In 2015, he won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Asia) for his short story, The Umbrella Man. He has written two books of poetry, three novels—The Garden of Solitude, Mehr: A Love Story, and The Lion of Kashmir (long listed for the Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize)—, an experimental fiction—Love in the Time of Quarantine—, and a book of short stories—A Fistful of Earth and Other Stories (long listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award 2015). He has also co-edited two anthologies, namely A Long Dream of Home: The Persecution, Exodus and Exile of Kashmiri Pandits and Once We Had Everything: Literature in Exile. His short stories have been long listed for Lorian Hemingway Short Story Prize, Royal Society of Literature’s V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize, and Seán O’Faoláin Short Story Prize. Siddhartha’s short films, The Last Day and Goodbye, Mayfly, have won several awards at international film festivals. His writings appear in various literary journals.
Sushant Dhar for his short story The Long Night.
A stream of narrative flows interspersed with an extended enigmatic monologue that lasts for the entire night. A city is shut down and a grotesque spectacle unfolds. A man battles with Tlon and Uqbar as he passes through time and his fissured memory. This story is an impenetrable world of abstract imagination, a relentless pursuit of Time through one long night in which the protagonist fails to fall asleep. It’s the story of an exile who struggles with dreams to be at home.
Sushant Dhar is a fiction writer. His short stories and essays have been published by Bloomsbury, The Punch Magazine, New Asian Writing, The Bombay Review, Coldnoon, Muse India and others. He can be reached at dharsushants[at]gmail.com.
Subi Taba for her short story A Night with the Tiger.
A Night with the Tiger is a story about a tribal hunter living in the rural mountains of North Eastern India during the 1960s who survives a tiger attack during a hunting expedition with his father. Years later after his father’s death, he encounters another tiger in the deep jungle, unaware that the spirit of the tiger hunts back the hunter in its evil and insidious ways.
Subi Taba is a civil servant by profession and a writer by passion. She writes poetry and prose. She is a Nyishi girl born in Arunachal Pradesh, India. She was awarded ‘100 Inspiring Authors of India Award’ in 2018 for her debut poetry book, Dear Bohemian Man. She has performed her poetry in many literary and poetry festivals. Her short story, Spirit of the Forest is selected for a short story anthology to be published by Zubaan publishers, Delhi. She was also one of the winners of Sunsilk Mega Miss Northeast, 2013. She attended Nagaland University, where she pursued M.Sc. (Agriculture). She loves time travel movies, exotic cuisines, wandering in the woods and being goofy with her little sister.