Lifetime Achievement
One of India’s most revered literary figures, Chandrashekhara Kambara, was conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman. The Kannada writer, playwright, folklorist and theatre activist received a trophy and a citation carrying a cash prize of Rs 2 lakh. The occasion also marked Kambara’s 89th birthday, which he celebrated by cutting a cake in the presence of TNIE Editor Santwana Bhattacharya and his elder daughter, Dr Jayashree C Kambara. His body of work, primarily in Kannada, draws from folklore, performance traditions and cultural memory. It has enriched literature and continues to inspire readers. His works have shared the collective cultural imagination of the nation.
Best fiction
With a note of gratitude for jury members for seeing my book and selecting it as a winner of Best Fiction especially in the year which had formidable shortlisted books like Banu Mushtaq’s Booker Prize winner, Heart Lamp, and Vikas Swarup’s The Girl With the Seven Lives. I feel truly honoured to receive this award, and I am affirmed that stories from the farthest places in the map also belong to the centre of the literary world. The book is a souvenir of my life, growing up as a young girl in the mountain village of Arunachal Pradesh, and these are the stories that will be told if my mountains could speak. I want to thank TNIE for giving me this honour of a lifetime to be associated with the legacy of Ramnath Goenka in celebrating the power of words.
- Subi Taba
Best Non-fiction
As a journalist, it is really special to me to receive an award with Ramnathji’s name. As a historian and writer of books, it is very special to be in Chennai, a city that loves literature. When I published my first book of narrative non-fiction about 17 years ago, there were not many of us. Today, I am part of a group, a tribe of writers, who have adopted narrative non-fiction as a way to and need to tell urgent stories, brave stories, and necessary stories as a mantra. History, politics, science, biographies, place and people, all come alive today as narrative non-fiction. We can call it a battleground of ideas, or we can call it, a battle for the future, there is no better time to be a writer. Like my fellow nominees, I am delighted to be here at this place in history and time in history.
- Sudeep Chakravarthi
Best Debut
To write this book, three people are important. One is my publisher Chiki Sarkar from Juggernaut Books, editor Parth Mehrotra, and my co-writer Mirchi, my cat who was my supervisor while I was writing my book. At a time when media is dominated by corporate political nexus, which repeatedly invisiblises the existence of Indian workers, and fails to discuss the annihilation of important employement programmes, and the impact of new labour policies, or the lack of it, I hope this award will help in putting the lives of workers like Syeda, at the forefront, who after decades of working don’t manage to make the minimum wage. I also hope that India never forgets the diversity of its voices and the labour of its people across communities, religions, and regions.
- Neha Dixit
How the winners were picked
Santwana Bhattacharya, editor of The New Indian Express, spoke about the philosophy behind the awards and the methodical process adopted to ensure literary merit and fairness. Describing the Sahitya Samman as an occasion that celebrates “writing, ideas and that enduring pleasure of reading”, she said the awards were rooted in the belief that “thoughtful writing enriches public life and helps us better understand ourselves and the world around us”.
Bhattacharya said the exercise began with a long list of 22 books across four categories. These titles were shortlisted through an internal review by her and consulting editor, Ravi Shankar, following which the titles were evaluated by an external jury chaired by author and former ambassador of India to Bhutan Pavan K Varma, with writer-economist Sanjeev Sanyal and author Githa Hariharan as members. The jury, she said, read and deliberated on three to four books in each category before arriving at the final selections.