BANGALORE: To honour literary brilliance in India, Indiaplaza.in, India’s leading online shopping destination, yesterday announced the second edition of Indiaplaza Golden Quill Book Awards. Initiated as an annual event in 2008, the award is aimed at encouraging and promoting excellence in writing amongst Indian authors. The award is constituted in two categories – English Fiction and English Non Fiction, with the addition of a new category this year – Reader’s Choice Award for Non Fiction. A unique aspect of The Indiaplaza Golden Quill Book Awards is that readers and book lovers can vote and choose Reader’s Choice Award’ in both the categories through an online voting system hosted on www.
indiaplaza.in. ‘The Critics’ Choice Award’ for the Fiction category will be evaluated by a preeminent panel of judges from the shortlist.
The judges’ panel include thespian and television actor Tom Alter; writer, journalist & well known theater critic Shanta Gokhale, and well known journalist Mukund Padmanabhan. Ms. Arundhati Ghosh, Deputy Director, India Foundation for the Arts will ensure that the entire process from long listing to choosing the award is fair and transparent.
Commenting on the launch of the 2009 edition of the awards K. Vaitheeswaran, Cofounder and COO, Indiaplaza.
in said, “As India’s largest online bookstore, we have served book lovers in India and expanded the market with a selection of over 4 million titles. The Indiaplaza Golden Quill Awards, aims to celebrate the best of Indian writing and reach excellent Indian writing to the reading public. This year we are happy to announce the introduction of a new category ‘The Indiaplaza Golden Quill Readers’ Choice for non-fiction’.
With the addition of this new category, we have reinforced our commitment to the Indian literary community. We are confident that the Indiaplaza Golden Quill Book Awards will establish itself as a prestigious and coveted honour that the entire Indian publishing industry, including authors, publishers, distributors and readers will start looking forward to every year.” Leading publishing houses in India have been invited to nominate their best books, both fiction and non fiction, published in the calendar year 2008 for the longlist of the award. A panel of critics and authors will then shortlist books for each category.
The first edition of the Indiaplaza Golden Quill Book Awards received an overwhelming response from the Indian literary community.