Armory Square Prize Notice
A Statement Regarding Two Entries
Removed Recently from the Prize Shortlist of “Finalists”
April 20, 2023
SKANEATELES, NEW YORK: On April 3, 2023, a jury comprised mainly of literary translators selected seven finalists for the inaugural Armory Square Prize for South Asian Literature in Translation (hereon referred to as the “AS Prize”).
Two of the winning entries have since been removed from that shortlist at their request. Authors and literary translators in the wider community have asked for clarification around that decision. In the interest of transparency our compliance and legal team has assembled a response to those inquiries.
After an initial round of jury deliberations, the Armory Square Prize provisionally determined that the winner would be Nandini Krishnan, translator of the novel Raasa Leela by Charu Nivedita. Notifying the translator, Nandini Krishnan, who submitted the entry that hers was the winning submission, was a decision taken in good faith. The AS Prize had not completed the entirety of its due diligence at the time the jury notified Krishnan. At that stage, both Nandini Krishnan and Charu Nivedita were still only provisional “winners” of the Armory Square prize.
In her original application and submission to the AS Prize, Krishnan herself had referred to “pedophilia and sexual kinks” that the author “reflects on” in the body of the work. On this basis, the Armory Square Prize and its sponsor Armory Square Ventures made further inquiries. Upon request, Krishnan supplied the AS Prize with additional excerpts from the work of Charu Nivedita that she herself identified as containing material that could possibly be problematic. She willingly participated in our internal process and now claims she has been injured by the AS Prize’s compliance and risk teams’ analysis of the excerpts even though she flagged and highlighted several passages as potentially objectionable.
Based on laws and guidelines for publication within the United States and other Western countries, the AS prize and legal team determined it was well within the team’s rights and obligations to decide whether the offending material would be suitable for the Armory Square award. ASV and the AS Prize jury, at all times, have acted in an objective manner and approached the process in good faith.
The standards utilized by the AS Prize compliance and legal team to evaluate Charu Nivedita’s work were objective and based upon those prevailing in the publishing industry. The AS Prize made its determination based solely upon the content of the work itself.
Upon reviewing several of the excerpts provided by Krishnan, the AS Prize compliance and legal team discovered the excerpts contained:
references to under age sex;
the name of an actual real life high school in Delhi with descriptions of sexual acts between high school students;
passages that advocated for the minimum age of consent for sex in India to be reduced to age 14 (from the statutory legal age of 18);
other passages that contained criticism of the King of Thailand and implied that he chose to ignore under age prostitution, because his economy was built on prostitution and would otherwise collapse;
and made similar comment about the economies of Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines (i.e. stating that millions would starve to death in these countries if under age prostitution was prosecuted).
Based upon its examination of these excerpts, the AS Prize’s sponsor Armory Square Ventures felt it could not endorse the work or designate Charu Nivedita’s work (and Krishnan’s translation) as the winners of the AS Prize. This was an “executive decision” of the AS Prize and Armory Square Ventures and did not involve the AS Prize jury. Later the AS Prize jury met and selected a final winner.
Among a plethora of over fifty smart, provocative, and historically important submissions, we have now identified five, rather than seven, that are deserving of the award. Furthermore, we remain pleased with the outcome and, regardless of who wins in early May, sincerely thank everyone who applied. We hope those on our shortlist will find a worthy home with a publisher either in the United States, in South Asia or elsewhere where international literature has a devoted readership and audience.
Thanks in advance for your interest in the new prize. We look forward to celebrating many more seasons of literature with you in the months and years ahead.
Sincerely,
The AS Prize and ASV