New Delhi: Indian author Siddharth Dhanvant Shan-ghvi’s debut novel ‘The Last Song of Dusk’ has won Italy’s top literary prize, the Grinzane Cavour 2005. “I am delighted and thrilled by the honour,” Shanghvi, 26, whose book was a rage last year and won the Betty Trask Award for Best First Book, told IANS. “I knew that my book was doing well in Italy but to win this prize is phenomenal,” said Shanghvi, who divides his time between Mumbai and North California.

In the past the Grinzane Cavour has been awarded to Nobel laureates Toni Morrison, VS Naipaul and Gunter Grass, Booker Prize winner Ian McEwan and Pulitzer winner Michael Cunningham. The book, a tale of love, pathos and song populated by panthers and parrots and blistering sexual rendezvous, has been a worldwide hit. And Shanghvi’s genre of writing has been called the “middle ground” between authors Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie. — HNS