Ruchir Sharma presented with the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award for Breakout Nations

Day 4 of the city’s foremost literary extravaganza, Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest continued its annual tradition of acknowledging the contribution of debutant Indian English language authors to Indian literature by awarding the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award to Ruchir Sharma for his best seller Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles.

The prestigious honour was presented by Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan, Director, Tata Sons along with a cash prize of1 lakh.

The authors shortlisted in the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award included Nilanjana Roy – The Wildings, Sudha Shah – The King in Exile, Sudheendra Kulkarni – Music of the Spinning Wheel, Naresh Fernandes – Taj Mahal Foxtrot, Ruchir Sharma – Breakout Nations and Aman Sethi – A Free Man whose books were all introduced by the eminent journalist and jury member Mr. Dileep Padgaonkar. The other jury members included Mr. Anil Dharker, Mr. Santosh Desai, Mr. Ashutosh Pandey and Mr. Siddharth D Shanghvi.

A writer by passion, New York based Ruchir Sharma is the Managing Director and Head of the Emerging Markets Equity team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and has been a longtime contributing editor with Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The New York Times and Foreign Affairs. He has also been writing a regular column on global financial markets since 1991.

Germinating from his experiences of having spent one week each month in emerging markets for the past 15 years, “Breakout Nations”, his first book published takes a penetrating look at the countries he believes are likely to flourish, or fail, in the years ahead. The book provides a clear picture of the shifting balance of global economic power and how it will play out for emerging nations and the West. Despite giving a country-by-country account, the book avoids dry statistics and economic theories and reveals how to spot economic success stories.

“It’s a distinct privilege to be recognized at such an illustrious platform and I thank Tata Literature Live! and the kind jurors for bestowing me with this award,” said winner of the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award Ruchir Sharma, in a message read out on his behalf.

“Tata Literature Live! First Book Award is an initiative to recognize and reward writers via just embarking on literary career,” said Anil Dharker, Festival Director. “What we have seen in the two years of the awards existence is that quite a wonderful selection of books makes it to the short list and it’s an extremely difficult task for the jury to select just one book out of the short list.”

“We strongly believe that bestowing this award resonates the ethos and values of the Tata Group”, added Mr. Atul Agrawal, Vice-President – Corporate Affairs, Tata Services, “We hope our initiative provides Indian writers with encouragement at an early stage, so that we may enjoy more quality literature by them in the years to come”.

The five-day festival hosted events ranging from panel discussions, book launches, open house conversations with celebrated authors, publishers and literary agents, poetry readings and straight talks.

Tata Group is the title sponsor of the festival, supported by Landmark, Tata Steel and Land Rover.