Rohinton Mistry
Indian-born Canadian writer Rohinton Mistry has won the of the $50,000 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, a prestigious award presented every two years by World Literature Today, a magazine of the University of Oklahoma, and determined by an international jury representing nine countries.
"The world will quickly discover the excellence of Rohinton Mistry's luminous fiction that the Neustadt jury acknowledged with this choice," magazine director Robert Con Davis-Undiano commented. "Giving the award to Mistry is inspired."
"I am delighted with the news," Mistry said Monday in a statement released by his publisher. "It is, needless to say, an honour to join the list of Neustadt laureates. But it is equally so to be among the many nominees for the prize; a quick glance will reveal as much, whether one looks at the 2012 authors or the lists for previous years."
Previous Neustadt Prize winners include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, David Malouf, Octavio Paz and Canada's Josef Skvorecky.
Mistry, 59, was a finalist in the 1996 Man Booker Prize for A Fine Balance, his best-known novel, and won the Commonwealth Prize for his first novel, Such a Long Journey.
Born in Bombay, India, he has lived in suburban Toronto since 1975.