An exciting new competition recently took place at the third Jaipur Literature Festival in India. Challengingly and comically entitled ‘Am I Writing  Rubbish?’ is a joint venture between the British Council and Oxford Bookstores in India. Aimed at young and aspiring Indian writers under the age of thirty-five the competition gave them an opportunity to get feedback on their work from a panel of international and national experts.

With the assistance of the British Council the directors of two leading literature development organisations, Chris Gribble of The New Writing Partnership and Rebecca Swift of The Literary Consultancy joined forces to judge the competition.

Chris Gribble at the Jaipur Literature Festival

Christopher and Rebecca flew to the exciting, rapidly growing literary festival in Jaipur, which boasted a full and fascinating programme. In between attending riveting literary debates and readings involving Kamilla Shamsie, Tishani Doshi, Ian McEwan and Donna Tartt, they filtered entries which were being downloaded from the internet even as the festival went on.

Local helper at the event, Raman Singh was hugely helpful, and both judges extend huge thanks to him. Rebecca and Chris found the range of entries fascinating - reflecting both a traditional story-telling sensibility using myths and religion as a basis for exploration, as well as cutting-edge new work by younger Indians grappling with the changing pace of modern times.

Madhumita Bhattacharyya won the competition with an untitled novel, first and second runner ups were Reshma Ghosh for Nowhere People and Saudha Kasim for Wing and Bone. Additionally, Priyamavada won a commendation for a novel extract.

Click here to download the judges notes and extracts from the winning texts.