- US-based Dalit writer Sujatha Gidla (55) has won 2018 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize for her debut book “Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India”.
- The book is an account of growing up in an ‘untouchable’ family in modern India and it was published by Harper Collins India.
- Sri Lankan author Anuk Arudpragasam had won the prize in 2017 for his debut novel “The Story of a Brief Marriage” set in the backdrop of the civil war.
Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize
- The Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize is funded by the Shakti Bhatt Foundation.
- It was set up in 2008 in memory of young writer and editor Shakti Bhatti.
- It honours first-time writers from Indian sub-continent for their outstanding work of fiction or non-fiction.
- It carries cash prize of Rs. 2 lakhs.