Sandeep Bamzai's 'Princestan: How Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten Made India' bags KLF award

Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF) has announced KLF Book Awards 2020-21 in various categories e Non-fiction, Fiction, Poetry, Hindi, book in Translation , Bhasa First book, Business, Strategic Affairs, Environmental, Biography/Autobiography, Children Book, Sports, Life Style and Emerging Trend and others & others.

In the non-fiction category, the books selected include IANS Editor-in-Chief and CEO Sandeep Bamzai's 'Princestan: How Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten Made India' (Rupa Publications), Shashi Tharoor & Samir Saran's 'The New World Disorder' (Aleph Book Company), Vinay Sitapati's 'Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi' (Penguin Viking-Penguin Random House India), Pavan K. Varma's 'The Great Hindu Civilisation: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward' (Westland), T.M. Krishna's 'A Brief History of Mrdangam Makers' (Context, Westland), Ashutosh Bhardwaj's 'The Death Script' (HarperCollins India) and Prem Prakash's 'Reporting India' (Ebury Press, Penguin Random House India).

These awards are for the years 2020 and 2021.

In the fiction category, the five books include -- Jahnavi Baruah's 'Undertow' (Penguin Random House India), Namita Gokhale and Malashri Lal's "Betrayed by Hope: A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt' (HarperCollins India), Tarana Husain Khan's 'The Begum and the Dastan' (Tranquebar, Westland), Ashwani Sanghi's 'The Vault of Vishnu' (Westland) and Ashok Kaul's 'Undercover in Bandipore' (Vitasta Publishing Pvt Ltd).


The five books for the Poetry Book of the Year Award are: Gulzar's 'A Poem a Day' (HarperCollins India), Abhay K's 'Kalidasa: Meghaduta-The Cloud Messenger' & "Kalidasa: Ritusamhara-The Six Seasons" (Jointly), (Bloomsbury), Greta Rana's 'From Castleford to Kathmandu' (Vajra Books), Basant Chaudhary's 'Anek Pal aaur Mai' (Vani Prakashan).

For the Hindi Book of the Year Award, five books including Neelakshi Singh's "Khela", (Setu Prakashan), Alka Saraogi's 'Kulbhooshan Ka Naam Darj Kijiye', (Vani Prakashan), Mamta Kalia's 'Ravi Katha: Andaaz-E-Bayan Urf Ravi Katha' (Vani Prakashan), Praveen Kumar Jha's 'Wah Ustad' (Rajpal & Sons), Shirish Khare's 'Ek Desh Barah Duniya' (Rajpal & Sons) have been selected.

Perumal Murugan's 'Estuary"-Translated by Nandini Krishnan (Eka, Westland) has been selected for the KLF Book in Translation of the Year Award.


For KLF Bhasa Award, Manoranjan Byapari's 'The Runaway Boy' (Eka, Westland) has been selected.

The KLF Debut Book Award 2020-21 is for Sonu Sood & Meena Iyer's 'I am no Messiah' (Penguin eBury Press).

For the KLF Business Book of the Year Award, R C Bhargava's 'Getting Competitive: A Practitioner's Guide for India' (HarperCollins India), Urjit Patel's 'Overdraft' (HarperCollins India), and Tamal Bandyopadhyay's 'Pandemonium: The Great Indian Banking Tragedy' (Roli Books) have been selected.


Titles selected for the KLF Diplomacy/Strategic Affairs Book of the Year Award 2020-21 include S. Jaishankar's 'The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World' (HarperCollins India), Zorawar Daulet Singh's 'Powershift: India-China Relations in a Multipolar World'(Pan Macmillan) and Subramanian Swamy's 'Himalayan Challenge: India, China and the Quest for Peace' (Rupa Publications).

Books selected for the KLF Environmental Book of the Year Award 2020-21 include Shekhar Pathak's 'Hari Bhari Ummid' (Vani Prakashan), The Chipko Movement: A People's History, (Permanent Black) and Amitav Ghosh's 'Jungle Nama' (Fourth Estate India- HarperCollins India).

KLF Women/Dalit/Tribal/Minorities Literature Award 2020-21 include Gopinath Mohanty's 'Harijan: A Novel' -translated by Bikram Das (Aleph Book Company), Sudarshan Ramabadran and Guru Prakash Paswan's 'Makers of Modern Dalit History' (Penguin Random House India), 'A Plate of White Marble' (Shwet Patharer Thala) by BaniBasu (Translated by Nandini Guha, Niyogi Books), Pradeep Srivastav's 'Ramvilas Paswan: Sankalp, Sahas aur Sangharsh' ( Penguin Random House India) and Shafey Kidwai's 'Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Reason, Religion and Nation' (Routledge).


Titles selected for the KLF Biography/Autobiography Book of the Year Award include Tenzin Geyche Tethong's 'His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama: An Illustrated Biography' (Roli Books), Gopalkrishna Gandhi's 'Restless as Mercury: My Life as a Young Man Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi' (Aleph Book Company),

Yatindra Mishra's 'Akhtari: The Life and Music of Begum Akhtar' (HarperCollins India), Rasheed Kidwai's 'Bharat Ke Pradhan Mantri' (Rajkamal Prakashan) and John Zubrzycki's 'The House of Jaipur: The Inside Story of India's Most Glamorous Royal Family (Juggernaut).

The two titles selected for KLF Children Book of the Year Award include Ruskin Bond's 'Miracle at Happy Bazaar: My Best Stories for Children' (Aleph Book Company), Sudha Murthy's 'Grandparents' Bag of Stories' (Puffin, Penguin Random House India).


Ramachandra Guha's 'The Commonwealth of Cricket'(HarperCollins India) has been selected for the KLF Sports Book of the Year Award.

Rujuta Diwekar's 'Eating in the Age of Dieting', (Westland) has been selected for the KLF Lifestyle & Emerging Trend Book Award.

The winners will be felicitated and awarded during the annual Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF), scheduled to be held from December 10 to 12 at Bhubaneswar.

"KLF Book Awards jury members have chosen the best thought provoking contributions across different categories published during 2020-21. The objective is to contribute to debates and discourses in the national and global public sphere and encourage more thoughtful, reflective, unique and inspiring contributions. There will be dedicated sessions on these books by the authors and erudite reviewers to enrich the intellectual discussion at Kalinga Literary Festival," said Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Founder and Director of Kalinga Literary Festival - IANS