Indian writer Amitabha Bagchi has won this year’s DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for his novel, Half the Night is Gone.

Bagchi was awarded the DSC Prize on the final day of this year’s Nepal Literature Festival, selected from a group of six nominees.

Half the Night is Gone is the ninth novel to be awarded the DSC Prize, an award focused on fiction writing and one of the most prestigious awards in South Asian literature, founded in 2010. The book is Bagchi’s third novel, in which he provided glimpses of India’s history and politics through the lives of two families. The award came with a cash prize of $25,000.

Bagchi was presented the DSC Prize by co-founder Surina Narula and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pradeep Gyawali at Monday evening’s award ceremony. Over the course of the ceremony, short-listed authors dictated excerpts from their novels and the jury chair explained the judging process.

The shortlist of authors comprised four Indians, an Afghan and a Pakistani, of whom three were debut authors. The award received 90 entries, and the shortlist was announced on November 6.

Previous winners of the literature award include Jayanth Kaikini’s No Presents Please (2018), Anuradha Roy’s Sleeping on Jupiter (2016), and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowland (2015).

Administered by the South Asian Literature Prize and Events Trust, writers of any ethnicity or nationality are eligible for the award, but the work must pertain to the region in content and theme.