Q&A with S. Prasannarajan, Crossword Book Awards 2025 Jury: “The onus of exclusion”
S. Prasannarajan, jury member for the Crossword Book Awards 2025, shares his take on the challenge of picking from a wide range of translations and why, for him, “the onus of exclusion” defines the process.
Prasannarajan, Editor of Open magazine, is a seasoned journalist with senior editorial roles at The Times of India, Indian Express, and India Today. A prolific essayist and cultural critic, he writes widely read columns and shapes public discourse through his incisive political, literary, and international analyses.
The jury reads a huge number of submissions in a limited time, what was your approach to reading so widely and still giving each book its due?
Beware: The book takes you along or abandon you.
If literature reflects its time, what did this year’s translation submissions tell you about the world we’re living in?
The whirl of being in the world.
What was the toughest part of arriving at a longlist from such a wide range of submissions?
The onus of exclusion.
If you had to describe this year’s longlist in three words, what would they be?
Life…Layers..Lamentations…
What conversations do you think this year’s longlist adds to Indian literature, or even to our society at large?
The trill of being lost in a cultural polyphony.
In a time of endless content, what do you think makes literature still worth turning to?
Imagination shall save the world.
What, to you, makes a book unforgettable?
The telling.
As a jury member, what advice would you give to aspiring Indian writers hoping to be recognized in the coming years?
Take non advice; let stories seek your voice.
