Asian Pacific American Librarians announce winner of literary award

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SHARMILA SEN

ASAM NEWS

Indian American author Sharmila Sen has won a 2019 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature for her book Not Quite Not White: Losing and Finding Race in America, reports American Bazaar.

The awards, instituted by the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA), are aimed at promoting Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage. Sen’s novel won in the Adult Non-Fiction category.

The APALA describes Not Quite Not White, published last year by Penguin Books, as a “a richly literary examination of the various systems of class, race, religion, and culture that defined who she is, drawing on her familial and educational backgrounds in Hindu mythology, Indian politics, British and American literature, Bollywood, American television, and more.”

In what Publisher’s Weekly describes as a “captivating memoir,” Sen examines her immensely privileged background in 1970s Calcutta, as well as paints “vivid and often disturbing picture of poverty in India,” and explores her transition to becoming a minority in the U.S.

Sen will receive the award at the annual APALA Literature Award Ceremony during the organization’s Annual Conference and Exhibition in Washington, D.C., later this June, according to the APALA website.