Banaras Lit Fest announces 2026 Book Awards winners, Namita Gokhale wins Lifetime Achievement Award

The Banaras Lit Fest Book Awards has announced its 2026 winners in fiction, poetry, nonfiction and translation in English and Hindi languages. The winners will receive a cash prize of Rs 51,000 along with a citation and a trophy.

The Lifetime Achievement Award was given to writer Namita Gokhale and carries a cash prize of Rs 1,00,000.

Kurukh poet Mahadev Toppo was given the Kalidas Award for Indian Languages, while Hindi writer Parag Pawan is the winner of this year’s Vivekanand Award for Youth.

The awards will be presented at the festival between January 30 and February 1, in Varanasi.

Here is the complete list of winners:

English language winners

• Ruskin Bond Award for Fiction: Eden Abandoned: The Story of Lilith, Shinie Antony, Hachette India

• Sarojini Naidu Award for Poetry: The Hanuman Chalisa, translated by Abhay K, Bloomsbury India

• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Award for Nonfiction: Father Tongue, Motherland: The Birth of Language in South Asia, Peggy Mohan, Penguin India

• Rabindranath Tagore Award for Translation: Limited / Unlimited, Sankar, translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha, Bloomsbury India

Hindi language winners

• Premchand Award for Fiction: दूरस्थ दाम्पत्य , ममता कालिया

• Kabir Award for Poetry: पागल गणितज्ञ की कविताएँ, उदयन वाजपेयी

• Rahul Sankrityayan Award for Nonfiction: दुःख की दुनिया भीतर है , जे सुशील

• Mahadevi Verma Award for Translation: 1857 की क्रान्ति का अवध , थॉमस हेनरी कावानाघ, अनुवाद: राजगोपाल सिंह वर्मा

Disclosure: Arunava Sinha is the editor of Books and Ideas section on Scroll.