Santanu Battacharya wins Spread the Word’s Life Writing Prize 2021

Santanu Battacharya who is based in Islington, North London is the winner of Spread the Word’s national writing competition, the Life Writing Prize 2021, for The Nicer One. Now in its fifth year, the Life Writing Prize, run in association with Goldsmiths Writers’ Centre, was established to find and develop the best new life writing from new and emerging writers. Santanu wins £1,500, a writing mentor, an Arvon creative writing course, and membership to the Royal Society of Literature.  The Nicer One explores a chance encounter with a childhood classmate that sets off a series of difficult memories, and a carefully-constructed yet fragile life begins to unravel. Themes covered within The Nicer One include LGBTQ rights, childhood bullying, sexual abuse, mental health, immigration.Santanu  Bhattacharya grew up in India. In 2021, he won a  London Writers Award  and was selected for the Tin House Writers’ Workshop  in Portland, USA. His non-fiction essays have appeared in The Oxford Student, Feminism in India, and the book Revealing Indian Philanthropy. Santanu has degrees in public policy from Oxford University and in engineering from National University of Singapore. After having lived in eight cities across three countries, Santanu now lives in north London.   He said: "I'm so delighted to have won this Prize. It means a lot to be recognised at this early stage of my writing career. The Life Writing Prize is a platform like no other, and celebrates the kind of stories we need more people to tell. Writing this piece was both a haunting and healing experience, and has helped me explore a certain vulnerability that I didn't know I could write about." Mentors for Santanu, Carla and Matt are the writers Max Porter, Winnie M Li, and Katy Massey. The Life Writing Prize, which is free to enter, is funded by Joanna Munro.