Mistry’s novel wins award

Mistry’s novel wins award
"In India they don’t pay very much for books. What they pay is enough to live on for two-three months… Either one has a guardian angel to take care of daily needs, or one has to take up odd jobs to sustain (oneself) and that is not healthy for writing,” said author Cyrus Mistry whose novel Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer won the prestigious 2014 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature at the festival in the face of stiff competition from five other authors, reported The Free Press Journal (FPJ) on January 20, 2014. The award, presented at the Jaipur Literature Festival, comes with a trophy and a cash component of $ 50,000, which Mistry hopes to use wisely for his writing pursuits. The reticent writer who prefers his solitude has moved from Bombay to Kodaikanal.

Mistry’s novel deals with the lives of the corpse bearers of the Zoroastrian community which are "shunned by society and while writing about them, I did have a fear that people might unnecessarily drag it into controversy. But I am glad nothing of the sort happened and I was able to raise certain moral questions through my narrative.” The story revolves around a Parsi priest who falls in love with the daughter of a corpse bearer. The author hopes that now that the novel has won a prize more people will make an attempt to read it. "You know the way people are. When you win a prize, people want to read it, even those who might have resisted reading it earlier,” Mistry told FPJ.
Expanding on the genesis of the novel, Mistry informed The Indian Express (IE) that in 1991 he had, as part of his research for a documentary for Channel 4, studied the lives of khandhias. In the process, he stumbled on a story within the story. "Someone told me a story of his father who was, by caste, not a khandhia but (was) forced to become one,” the 57-year-old author revealed. The documentary film never saw the light of day but the story served as the foundation for this novel. "The book doesn’t have much to do with facts and figures. The novel shows life, death and personal suffering,” the author told IE.