The Kalinga Literary Festival has announced its 2026 Book Awards longlist in five categories – Nonfiction, Fiction, Translated Fiction, Debut, and Poetry.
The shortlist will be announced in the second week of April and the awards ceremony will be held on May 8 in Delhi. The winning authors will receive a cash award of Rs 1 lakh.
Here is the complete longlist:
Nonfiction
The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir, Anand Teltumbde, Bloomsbury Publishing
The World After Gaza, Pankaj Mishra, Juggernaut Books
Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age, Vauhini Vara HarperCollins India
Indira Gandhi and the Years that Transformed India, Srinath Raghavan, Penguin Random House India
Scamlands: Inside the Asian Empire of Fraud That Preys on the World, Snigdha Poonam Penguin Random House India
Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy, Penguin Random House India
Called by the Hills, Anuradha Roy, Hachette India
Fiction
Great Eastern Hotel, Ruchir Joshi, HarperCollins India
The Elsewhereans, Jeet Thayil, HarperCollins India
Railsong, Rahul Bhattacharya, Bloomsbury Publishing
Rising Sons, Kavery Nambisan, Penguin Random House India
The Beast Within, Rudraneil Sengupta, Westland Books
The Last Free Naga, Jim Wungramyao Kasom, Speaking Tiger Books
Absolute Jafar, Sarnath Banerjee, HarperCollins India
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Penguin Random House India
Translated Fiction
Tiger Lessons, Sannapureddy Venkatarami Reddy, translated from the Telugu by Narasimha Kumar, Bloomsbury Publishing
The Dark Hours of the Night, Salma, translated from the Thamizh by GJV Prasad, Simon & Schuster India
Mudritha, Jissa Jose, translated from the Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil, HarperCollins India
Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq, translated from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, Penguin Random House India
The Owl, the River, the Valley, Arupa Patangia Kalita, translated from the Assamese by Mitra Phukan, Penguin Random House India
Nowhere People, Manoranjan Byapari, translated from the Bengali by Anchita Ghatak, Westland Books
Courtesans Don’t Read Newspapers, Anil Yadav, translated from the Hindi by Vaibhav Sharma, Penguin Random House India
Best Debut
The World With Its Mouth Open, Zahid Rafiq, Penguin Random House India
The Dig: Keeladi and the Politics of India’s Past, Sowmiya Ashok Hachette India
Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, Sam Dalrymple, HarperCollins India
The Map Is Not the Territory: Poems, Aranya Padil, Copper Coin Publishers
Hot Water, Bhavika Govil, HarperCollins India
Remnants of Rebellion, Ponnu Elizabeth Mathew, Aleph Book Company
Tales from the Dawn-Lit Mountains, Subi Taba, Penguin Random House India
Poetry
Harvesting Gods: Poems, Satya Mohanty, Speaking Tiger Books
The City under the City, John Kinsella and Jeet Thayil, HarperCollins India
So That You Know, Mani Rao, HarperCollins India
My Life Closed Twice, Subhashini Kaligotla, Copper Coin Publishers
Folie à Deux, Jennifer Robertson, Poetrywala
The Gallery of Upside-Down Women, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Penguin Random House India
Lone Pine, Siddhartha Menon, Hachette India
