Writer Neelum Saran Gour on Sunday won The Hindu Prize 2018 in the fiction category for her novel Requiem in Raga Janki while author Manoranjan Byapari won the prize in the non-fiction category for Interrogating My Chandal Life. The winners were announced at the ongoing annual Hindu Lit for Life literary festival in Tamil Nadu’s capital Chennai.

Requiem in Raga Janki, published by Penguin, is based on the life and career of Janki Bai of Allahabad, one of the earliest recording artists in the country. Interrogating My Chandal Life is the translation of Byapari’s memoir Itibritte Chandal Jivan, which is about his growing-up years in refugee camps in West Bengal and Dandakaranya. It was translated by Sipra Mukherjee and published by SAGE Samya.

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The other books shortlisted in the fiction category were Half the Night is Gone by Amitabha Bagchi, A Day in the Life: Stories by Anjum Hasan, All the Lives We Never Lived by Anuradha Roy, Poonachi by Perumal Murugan and translated by N Kalyan Raman, and The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay. The book was translated by Arunava Sinha.

In the non-fiction category, The Bengalis by Sudeep Chakravarti, Remnants of a Separation by Aanchal Malhotra, Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature by Jairam Ramesh, and The Most Dangerous Place: A History of the United States in South Asia by Srinath Raghavan were shortlisted.

The winners of the Hindu Young World Goodbooks awards 2019 for the best children’s books in India were also announced on Sunday. Vinayak Varma won the award in the Best Picture Book: Story category for Angry Akku. Rajiv Eipe’s Ammachi’s Amazing Machines was the winner in the illustration category, while Venita Coelho won the award for the best fiction book for Boy No 32. Mamta Nainy was the winner in the non-fiction category for A Brush with Indian Art.