On May 22, Paramita Brahmachari was declared the winner of the 8th Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize for the novella Pebblemonkey. Written by Manindra Gupta and translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha, the book was published in 2022 by Jadavpur University Press. Along with a trophy and a memento, Brahmachari also received a cash prize of Rs 100,000.
The jury chose Brahmachari the winner in appreciation of her “remarkable command of graphics and visual narrative of the book.” On her website, she has described her creative process. “Before beginning on a cover, I love to read the book, noting down possible visual motifs, especially if it’s fiction,” she said.
In 2022, she won the Publishing Next Industry Awards Book Cover of the Year (Indian Languages) for the novel Nishite Paoa Desh (Jadavpur University Press) – written by Mia Couto and translated from the Portuguese by Rita Ray. She was previously longlisted for the 6th and 7th Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize for the novels Suralakshmi Villa (Aruna Chakravarty, PanMacmillan India) and Dalit Lekhika: Women’s Writings from Bengal (edited by Kalyani Thakur Charal and Sayantan Dasgupta, Stree).
