Mumbai LitFest book awards 2025 announces longlists in fiction, nonfiction, and business categories

The longlists for the Godrej Literature Live! Mumbai LitFest Literary Awards for Fiction, Nonfiction and Business were announced on October 23. The winners will be named at the Festival’s finale on November 9. Here are the longlisted books and the jury in each category:

Fiction: Book of the year

• Island, Sujit Saraf

• Mother India, Prayaag Akbar

• Rising Sons, Kavery Nambisan

• The Comeback, Annie Zaidi

• The Last Knot, Shabir Ahmad Mir

• The Tiger’s Share, Keshava Guha

Fiction: Best first book

• Hot Water, Bhavika Govil

• Missy, Raghav Rao

• No Place to Call My Own, Alina Gufran

• Stroke of Death, Shampa Roy

• The Dead Know Nothing, Kishore Ram

• The Fertile Earth, Ruthvika Rao

The Fiction jury comprises poet and writer Akhil Katyal, writer Anil Menon, theatre artist Dolly Thakore, poet and writer K Srilata, and Associate Festival Director Shireen Mistry.

Nonfiction: Book of the year

• Gods, Guns, and Missionaries: The Making Of The Modern Hindu Identity, Manu S Pillai

• Golwalkar: The Myth Behind the Man, The Man Behind the Machine, Dhirendra K Jha

• Iconoclast: A Reflective Biography of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Anand Teltumbde

• The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World, William Dalrymple

• The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy, Rahul Bhatia

• The Undying Light: A Personal History of Independent India, Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Nonfiction: Best first book

• City as Memory: A Short Biography of Srinagar, Sadaf Wani

• India Inked: Elections in the World’s Largest Democracy, Poonam Agarwal

• Rama Bhima Soma: Cultural Investigations into Modern Karnataka, Srikar Raghavan

• Soumitra Chatterjee and His World, Sanghamitra Chakraborty

• The Lost Heer: Women in Colonial Punjab, Harleen Singh

• The Lucky Ones: A Memoir, Zara Chowdhary

The Nonfiction jury comprises academic Ajit Ranade, journalist Ayaz Menon, sociologist Jean Da Cunha, journalist Nirupama Subramanian, and Associate Festival Director Tina Nagpaul.

Business book of the year

• A Fly on the RBI Wall: An Insider’s View of the Central Bank, Alpana Killawala

• Ratan Tata: A Life, Thomas Mathew

• Sky High: The Untold Story of IndiGo, Tarun Shukla

• The Johnson & Johnson Files: The Indian Secrets of a Global Giant, Kaunain Sheriff M

• The Money Trap: Grand Fortunes and Lost Illusions Inside the Tech Bubble, Alok Sama

• Will India Get Rich Before It Turns 100?: A Reality Check, Prosenjit Datta

The Business jury comprises social impact leader Alka Puri, regulatory strategist and policy advisor Bhaskar Dasgupta, banking strategist and business consultant Kavita Hurry, investment banking leader Manisha Girotra, and journalist Sitaraman Shankar.