The first recipient of the newly instituted Bapsi Sidhwa Literary Prize is Tanaz Bhathena of Mississauga, Ontario whose fictional work Hunted by the Sky edged out competition from other Zoroastrian authors from India, UK, USA and Canada. The Prize was announced on the second day of the 12th World Zoroastrian Congress (12WZC) in New York on July 2, 2022. Carrying a cash gift of USD 2,000 (Rs 1,48,347) and a medal, it is sponsored by the Zoroastrian Association of Houston and FEZANA (Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America) Information Research Education System (FIRES).
Tanaz Bhathena (left), Bapsi Sidhwa
Hunted by the Sky, Bhathena’s third book, has also won the White Pine Award for the author. Yet another work, The Beauty of the Moment, won her the Nautilus Gold Award for Young Adult Fiction. Her acclaimed debut, A Girl Like That was named Best Book of the Year by different publications such as The Globe and Mail, Seventeen and The Times of India. She is currently editing her fifth book, Of Light and Shadow, that will be released in 2023. Born in India and raised in Saudi Arabia and Canada, Bhathena’s short stories have appeared in various publications including The Hindu, Blackbird, Witness and Room.
Since Bhathena was unable to receive the prize in person, in her video message shared at the Congress she mentioned that she was 13 years old when the movie 1942 Earth was released in 1999. On learning that it was based on Sidhwa’s Ice Candy Man, the teenager was intrigued for she had yet to "come across a book by a Parsi author… Books act like windows to the world but they are also mirrors and until then I had not read a single book that told stories about people like myself, Zoroastrians from South Asia. Bapsi Sidhwa was the first to show me that we too could have a voice in literature and she continues to be of great inspiration to me as a writer… I hope this award will inspire more Zarathushtis to tell stories and shine a light on our community so that young people will find these books and realize that they are not alone,” stated the Prize winner.
A resident of Houston for over three decades, octogenarian Sidhwa’s accomplishments and literary expressions were sought to be honored with this Prize (see "Acclaim for authors,” Zoroastrians Abroad, Parsiana, January 21-February 6, 2022). Sidhwa was two years old when she contracted polio, was thereafter homeschooled in Lahore and became an avid reader to make up for the absence of friends her own age. "While the Bapsi Sidhwa Literary Prize will be awarded once every two years to a Zoroastrian fiction writer, in the years to come the sponsors plan to widen the scope and recognize Zoroastrian writers in other fields of literature,” announced FIRES co-chair Aban Rustomji at the 12WZC.