Bangladeshi origin Tanwi Nandini wins $50,000 Kirkus Prize for nonfiction writing

Bangladeshi-origin Tanwi Nandini Islam, an American fiction writer and perfumer, was awarded the $50,000 Kirkus Prize on Thursday (27 October).

Her memoir "In Sensorium: Notes for My People" won the award in the nonfiction category from six finalists of the 2022 Kirkus Nonfiction Prize.

According to the judges, Tanwi's In Sensorium won for its daring, inventiveness, vision, and lyrical eloquence.

"Using the framework of fragrance and scent, the author's work confronts aspects of our society related to women, gender, and people of colour. Seductive, vital, and incomparable, this is a reading experience that endures," they said in a statement.

The winners of the ninth annual Kirkus Prize in Fiction, Nonfiction and Young Readers' Literature were announced in a ceremony at the Austin Central Library, Kirkus Reviews.

The winners were chosen from the 1,436 books that received the coveted Kirkus star in the last year and narrowed down from a shortlist released last month. Each winner receives a cash prize of $50,000.

Hernan Diaz's novel "Trust," a postmodern take on wealth, power and reality set in the 1920s and 1930s, won the Kirkus Prize for Fiction.

Prize judges cited Diaz for how "he uses multiple perspectives and forms to push the boundaries of what a novel can do." "What seems to begin as a homage to novels of the Roaring '20s unfolds with each successive layer into a complex story of power, love, and the nature of truth," the judges said.

Harmony Becker's Himawari House, a young adult graphic novel about foreign exchange students, won the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature.

Accoring to judges, the book's brilliance lies both in the authentic cultural specificity that grounds it and Becker's creative presentation that welcomes all readers in.