As part of the prize, Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s translation of Siddique Alam’s short story collection,
The Kettledrum and Other Stories will be published by Open Letter Books in 2024. An excerpt of the work has been published by Words Without Borders, an online literary publication with global reach. Alam’s “The Kettledrum” tells the story of an Adivasi matriarch living with the ghost of her deceased husband, weaving in legends that animate tribal communities and their rapidly receding traditions.

Juror for the prize and Delhi-based literary translator Arunava Sinha said of the work:

Musharraf Ali Farooqi's limpid and elegant translation infuses the intersectional world of primal practices and contemporary conflicts in Siddique Alam's stories with both the controlled grace of the original Urdu and the author's spartan clarity. Alam tells authentic stories that are both grounded and soaring, and Farooqi follows his text without missing a beat.

Literary translator Musharraf Ali Farooqi has over two decades of experience as an author, novelist, translator, and storyteller. His translations from classical and contemporary works include The Adventures of Amir Hamza, Fabulous Machinery for the Curious (Qissa anthology), Hoshruba, Syed Muhammad Ashraf’s The Beast, and Afzal Ahmed Syed's Rococo and Other Worlds. His novel Between Clay and Dust was a finalist for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and his novel The Story of a Widow was a finalist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. He is the founding editor of the Online Urdu Thesaurus, publishing director of Kitab, and the founder and editor of the Library of Urdu Classics. He is based in Lahore, Pakistan and has been a Fellow at the Harvard South Asia Institute and is the recipient of a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant.

The author, Siddique Alam, lives in Kolkata, India. A novelist, short story writer, critic, playwright and poet, Alam has published five collections of short stories, four novels, and a collection of poems. Alam is acclaimed for pioneering the use of fantastic elements in Urdu fiction, and is acknowledged for his use of innovative and experimental methods as a playwright. His short stories have been translated into several languages in India and included in prestigious anthologies. He was born in Purulia, West Bengal in India.

Launched in July of last year, the Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation is an annual effort to remedy the stark disparities in literary translation worldwide and support compelling storytellers from the Indian Subcontinent by raising their visibility in the US. The groundbreaking prize, sponsored by Armory Square Ventures, is the first of its kind worldwide. Of the nearly 7,600 books published in translation in the United States over the past decade, only 64, or fewer than 1%, originated from a South Asian language, even though these languages are spoken by a full one-fifth of the world’s population.

For more, see “12 Things to Know About the Armory Square Prize Shortlist,” a reference guide to all the works, authors and translators the Armory Square jury shortlisted in early April.

About Armory Square Ventures in Skaneateles, New York

Armory Square Ventures (ASV) is a diverse, mission-focused technology venture capital firm that operates across all of New York State. With offices in the Finger Lakes, Indianapolis and New York City, ASV arose out of the desire to seed opportunities and jobs for those based in the Upstate New York region and beyond. As such, we are an optimism engine and community catalyst for ecosystems outside of Silicon Valley, supporting B2B and tech-enabled software startups to source talent, resources and capital. Our focus lies in places overlooked by other investors. For more about the prize, winner or finalists, contact Meher Ali at meher@armorysv.com

About Open Letter Books in Rochester, New York

Open Letter—the University of Rochester's nonprofit, literary translation press—is one of only a handful of publishing houses dedicated to increasing access to world literature for English readers. Publishing ten titles in translation each year and running an online literary website called Three Percent, Open Letter searches for works that are extraordinary and influential, works that we hope will become the classics of tomorrow. For more about Open Letter Books, contact Chad Post at chad.post@rochester.edu