Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest announces longlists in five categories for its 2024 book awards

The longlists for the Literature Live! Literary Awards for Fiction, NonFiction and Business have been announced. The awards aim to recognise and encourage literary talent across genres, for both established and new writers. The winners will be announced at the Festival’s final day, November 17, in Mumbai.

Here are the longlists in each category:

Fiction

The jury for fiction comprises Deepa Adhikari, social entrepreneur and development communications consultant; Priyanka Sarkar, editor and translator; Rajrishi Singhal, author and journalist; Usha Subramaniam, former Professor of English Literature; and Shireen Mistry, Associate Festival Director of Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest.

Book of the year

• History’s Angel, Anjum Hasan (Bloomsbury India)

• Hurda, Atharva Pandit (Bloomsbury India)

• Loot, Tania James (Penguin Random House India)

• The Lady on the Horse and Other Secrets, Ramona Sen (Speaking Tiger)

• The Memoirs of Valmiki Rao, Lindsay Pereira (Penguin Random House India)

• The Witch in the Peepul Tree by Arefa Tehsin (HarperCollins Publishers)

Best first book

• Chronicle of an Hour and a Half, Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari (Context / Westland Books)

• Cockatoo, Yashraj Goswami (Pan Macmillan India)

• General Firebrand and His Red Atlas, Tathagata Bhattacharya (Seagull Books)

• Hurda, Atharva Pandit (Bloomsbury India)

• The Sea Elephants, Shastri Akella (Penguin Random House India)

• Western Lane, Chetna Maroo (Picador/Pan Macmillan India)

Nonfiction

The jury for nonfiction comprises Abhay Sardesai, educator and writer; Chandrahas Choudhury, author; Kalpana Sharma, journalist and author; Sudhakar Solomonraj, professor and environmentalist; and Tina Nagpaul, filmmaker and Associate Festival Director, Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest.

Book of the year

• A Walk Up The Hill: Living With People and Nature, Madhav Gadgil (Penguin Random House India)

• Gujarat Under Modi: The Blueprint for Today’s India, Christophe Jaffrelot (Context/ Westland Books)

• Intertidal: A Coast and Marsh Diary, Yuvan Aves (Bloomsbury India)

• Love In the Time of Hate: In the Mirror of Urdu, Rakhshanda Jalil (Simon & Schuster India)

• The Cobra’s Gaze: Exploring India’s Wild Heritage, Stephen Alter (Aleph Book Company)

• Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality, Venki Ramakrishnan (Hachette India)

Best first book

• Airplane Mode: A Passive-Aggressive History of Travel, Shahnaz Habib (Context/ Westland Books)

• Being Hindu, Being Indian: Lala Lajpat Rai’s Ideas of Nationhood, Vanya Vaidehi Bhargav (Penguin Random House India)

• Fire on the Ganges: Life Among the Dead in Banares, Radhika Iyengar (HarperCollins India)

• From Phansi Yard: My Year with the Women of Yerawada, Sudha Bharadwaj (Juggernaut Books)

• H-Pop: The Secretive World of Hindutva Pop Stars, Kunal Purohit (HarperCollins Publishers India)

• The Great Flap of 1942: How the Raj Panicked over a Japanese Non-invasion, Mukund Padmanabhan (Penguin Random House India)

Business book of the year

The jury for Business books comprises Charles Assisi, journalist and entrepreneur; Karthi Marshan, entrepreneur and copywriter; Saira Menezes, editor and journalist; Sunita Wazir, HR and leadership development professional; and Suresh Seshadri, journalist and business professional.

• AI Rising: India’s Artificial Intelligence Growth Story, Leslie D’Monte and Jayanth N Kolla (Jaico Publishing House)

• Lilliput Land: How Small Is Driving India’s Mega Consumption Story, Rama Bijapurkar (Penguin Random House India)

• The Last Dance of Rationality: Making Sense of an Unravelling World Order, Rohit Prasad (Hachette India)

• The Learning Trap: How Byju’s Took Indian Edtech for a Ride, Pradip K Saha (Juggernaut Books)

• The Tanishq Story: Inside India’s No. 1 Jewellery Brand, CK Venkataraman (Juggernaut Books)

• The Unicorn Quest: India Learns to Start Up, Archana Rai (Bloomsbury India)