The winner of this year’s prizes for the best Punjabi fiction will be announced next month at an awards ceremony in Surrey, B.C.
The Dhahan Prize for Punjabi Literature is the largest international literary award for fiction books in the Punjabi language.
This year’s finalists are all short story writers: Deepti Babuta, (Punjab, India) for Hunger Breathes Like This; Jameel Ahmad Paul ( Punjab, Pakistan) for Mendelian Rules; and Balijit (Mohali, Punjab) for Uchian Awazan.
The prize was established in 2013 to celebrate the Punjabi language and literature. Winners receive $25,000, while two additional finalists each receive $10,000. The books must be original and published in the previous calendar year.
Barj Dhahan, a Vancouver businessman and founder of the literature prize, told New Canadian Media that the prize is available for works of fiction written in both Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi Punjabi scripts. Dhahan said one of the goals of the prize is to safeguard the narratives and rich heritage contained within the Punjabi language while encouraging innovative and fresh approaches to engaging with this literary tradition.
The prize is presented by the Canada India Education Society, with support from UBC’s Department of Asian Studies.
“There was a desire to pay tribute to the Dhahan family’s legacy of social engagement in both India and Canada, where they have championed educational projects and initiatives related to Punjabi language instruction and nursing education, particularly for girls,” Dhahan said.
He said the prize is named for the Dhahan family’s ancestral village, in honour of his late father, S. Budh Singh Dhahan.
“It is an annual celebration of the three winning books for the award and it brings together arts, culture and literary people from diverse backgrounds.”
Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in B.C. after English, according to Statistics Canada. For the 2023 Award, 38 novels and short-story collections were submitted from six countries. One-third of the books were written by women authors.
“Every year is unique largely due to the quality and content of the winning books. So we celebrate,” Dhahan said.
Following the 1947 partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, the people were divided. The Dhahan Prize recognizes Gurmukhi, predominantly used in Indian Punjab; and Shahmukhi, used in Pakistani Punjab.
Diary Marif is a Vancouver-based Kurdish writer and award-winning journalist born in Iraq. He holds a master’s degree in history from Pune University in India (2013). His journalism has appeared in national and international outlets, including Rabble, Canadian Dimension, CBC Arts, Culturico, The Amargi, and The Canadian Encyclopedia. Since 2018, Marif has centred his creative work on memoir and personal narrative, exploring his experiences as a child of war. He has written chapter books for multiple projects and has appeared as a storyteller in public spaces. He received an Honourable Mention for the 2022 Susan Crean Award for Nonfiction, is a 2025 recipient of the Yosef Wosk Vancouver Manuscript Intensive Fellowship, and was awarded PEN Canada’s 2025 Marie-Ange Garrigue Prize.