Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest announced its Literary Awards (for fiction, nonfiction and business), Publisher of the Year award, Poet Laureate, and Lifetime Achievement award on November 17, the final day of the festival.
Here are the winners in each category:
Publisher of the year
Bloomsbury India
Fiction book of the year
History’s Angel, Anjum Husain, Bloomsbury India
The Memoirs of Valmiki Rao, Lindsay Pereira, Penguin India
Nonfiction book of the year
Intertidal: A Coast and Marsh Diary, Yuvan Aves, Bloomsbury India
Fiction best first book
Hurda, Atharva Pandit, Bloomsbury India
Nonfiction best first book
From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada, Sudha Bharadwaj, Juggernaut
Business book of the year
The Learning Trap: How Byju’s Took Indian Edtech for a Ride, Pradip K Saha, Juggernaut
Poet laureate
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra was declared the 2024 Poet Laureate. He is the author of four influential poetic tomes: Nine Enclosures, Distance in Statute Miles, Middle Earth and The Transfiguring Places. His most recent publication which encompasses three sections: The Book of Rahim and Other Poems, Ghalib, A Diary, and Book of Lahore is deeply evocative.
Previous Poet Laureates include Mamang Dai, Gieve Patel, Adil Jussawalla, Javed Akhtar, K Satchidanandan, Jayanta Mahapatra, Gulzar, Keki Daruwalla, Vikram Seth, and Joy Goswami.
Lifetime achievement award
Odia writer Pratibha Ray was awarded the 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award. Ray’s debut novel Barsha Basanta Baishakha was published in 1974. Her magnum opus Yajnaseni, which followed in 1984, revolving around the character of Draupadi in the Mahabharata, was cast in the framework of the modern-day Indian woman with her individual identity. Her epic novel Mahamoha in 2012, is a bold re-telling of the Ramayana from Ahalya’s point of view, which established her mastery of nuanced interpretation and complex characters.
Past recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award include CS Lakshmi, Mahesh Elkunchwar, Anita Desai, Ruskin Bond, Shanta Gokhale, Mark Tully, Girish Karnad, Amitav Ghosh, Kiran Nagarkar, MT Vasudevan Nair, Khushwant Singh, VS Naipaul, and Mahashweta Devi.
