When no one told stories of his people, he picked up a pen. Today, this fisherman’s son has become a voice that India can’t ignore.
25-year-old Surada Prasad — pen name Prasad Suri — just became the first fisherman’s son to win the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar.
But it was Mairaavana that changed everything. A novel he researched for 3 years — drawn from the forgotten lives of his Vada Balija fishing community.
For Prasad, this is only the beginning. “We must write the lives of the downtrodden. Who else will?” he said.