Toronto-based novelist Rohinton Mistry has been selected in the fiction category. London-born Pico Iyer, who lives in America and Japan, has been selected in the general nonfiction category for his reflections on the Dalai Lama.

The three scientists are Santosh Srinivas Vempala, associate professor of mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Madhu Sudan, Fujitsu professor of computer science, MIT; and Dr Meenakshi Wadhwa, curator of meteoritics, Field Museum, Chicago.

The Fellows were selected from over 3,000 applicants for awards totaling $7,112,000 based on recommendations from advisors for distinguished achievement in the past and exceptional promise for future accomplishment, says Foundation President Edward Hirsch.

Senator Simon Guggenheim established the fellowship in 1925 as a memorial to a son. Scores of Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer and other prize winners have been awarded the fellowship in the past, including poet Langston Hughes, writers Vladimir Nabokov and Saul Bellow, and sculptor Isamu Noguchi.

Design: Rahil Shaikh