A State Of Freedom, the third novel by UEA alumnus Neel Mukherjee, has been shortlisted for the $25,000 (£19,000) DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. The novel was published by Chatto & Windus last year. A graduate of the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) in 2001, Neel published his first novel, A Life Apart, in 2010. Initially published in India as Past Continuous, this was the co-winner of the Vodafone-Crossword Award in 2009 and the Writers’ Guild Best Fiction Book Award in 2010, and was itself shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. His second novel The Lives of Others was shortlisted for both the 2014 Man Booker Prize and the Costa Novel Award and was the winner of the Encore Award. It was also shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.