Longlists Announced For Tata Literature Live! Literary Awards For 2020
Mumbai: One of the highlights of the Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest is the conferring of its prestigious literary awards for Fiction, Non- Fiction and Business books published during the year.
The Awards seek to recognise and encourage literary talent across genres, for both established and new writers. Since the Festival is fully online this year due to the prevailing pandemic, the winners will be announced in a virtual session to be held on Sunday, 22 November. As has been the tradition, the Awards Ceremony will close the Festival.
The Longlists in each category (in alphabetical order), and the eminent Juries that decided the Awards, are as follows:
Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year (Fiction) Longlist (in alphabetical order)
1. A People’s History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian (Penguin Random House)
2. Amnesty by Aravind Adiga (Pan Macmillan)
3. Girl Made of Gold by Gitanjali Kolanad (Juggernaut)
4. Memory of Light by Ruth Vanita (Penguin Random House)
5. Prelude to a Riot by Annie Zaidi (Aleph)
6. The Merman and the Book of Power: A Quissa by Musharraf Ali Farooqui (Aleph)
Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year (Non-Fiction) Longlist (in alphabetical order)
1. A Chequered Brilliance: The Many Lives of V.K. Krishna Menon by Jairam Ramesh (Penguin Random House)
2. A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J.B.S. Haldane by Samanth Subramanian (Simon & Schuster)
3. Akbar: The Great Mughal by Ira Mukhoty (Aleph)
4. The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire by William Dalrymple (Bloomsbury)
5. The Deoliwallahs: The True Story of the 1962 Chinese-Indian Internment by Joy Ma & Dilip D’Souza (Pan Macmillan)
6. Sebastian & Sons: A Brief History of Mrdangam Makers by T.M. Krishna (Westland)
Tata Literature Live! First Book (Fiction) Longlist (in alphabetical order)
1. A Burning by Megha Majumdar (Penguin Random House)
2. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara (Penguin Random House)
3. The Cliffhangers by Sabin Iqbal (Aleph)
4. These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light by Dharini Bhaskar (Hachette)
5. You Beneath Your Skin by Damyanti Biswas (Simon & Schuster)
6. What’s Wrong with You, Karthik? by Siddhartha Vaidyanathan (Pan Macmillan)
Tata Literature Live! First Book (Non- Fiction) Longlist (in alphabetical order)
1. Flood and Fury: Ecological Devastation in the Western Ghats by Viju B (Penguin Random House)
2. Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul by Taran N. Khan (Penguin Random House)
3. Tales from The Tail End: My Cancer Diary by Ananya Mukherjee (Speaking Tiger)
4. The Death Script: Dreams and Delusions in Naxal Country by Ashutosh Bhardwaj (HarperCollins)
5. The Great Repression: The Story of Sedition in India by Chitranshul Sinha (Penguin Random House)
6. The Lotus Years: Political Life in India in the Time of Rajiv Gandhi by Ashwini Bhatnagar (Hachette)
Tata Literature Live! Business Book of the Year Longlist (in alphabetical order)
1. Excellence Has No Borders: How a Doctorpreneur Created a World-class Cancer Hospital Chain by B. S. Ajaikumar with Hemanth Gorur (Penguin Random House)
2. India Unlimited: Reclaiming the Lost Glory by Arvind Panagariya (HarperCollins)
3. Queeristan: LGBTQ Inclusion in the Workplace by Parmesh Shahani (Westland)
4. The CEO Factory: Management Lessons from Hindustan Unilever by Sudhir Sitapati (Juggernaut)
5. The Making of Hero: Four Brothers, Two Wheels and a Revolution that Shaped India by Sunil Kant Munjal (HarperCollins)
6. The Tech Whisperer: On Digital Transformation and the Technologies that Enable it by Jaspreet Bindra (Penguin Random House)
Juries for the awards
Each award category is decided by an eminent jury. The juries for 2020 were as follows:
Fiction Jury
Ashwani Kumar: Professor of Development Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai; researcher, author and poet.
Keki N Daruwalla: Poet, writer, former IPS officer; recipient of the Padma Shri and Sahitya Akademi Award.
Madhavi Menon: Author; Professor of English and Director, Centre for Studies in Gender & Sexuality, Ashoka University
Shashi Baliga: Visiting faculty, Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai; Executive Director, Literature Live!
Non-Fiction Jury
Jonathan Gil Harris: Author, Professor and Head of the Dept of English, Ashoka University.
Manu Pillai: Historian, award-winning author of four books and recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar Award.
Meena Menon: Independent journalist, author of three books; former Bureau Chief of The Hindu, Mumbai.
Naresh Fernandes: Founder & Editor, Scroll; author; Poeisis Fellow at the Institute of Public Knowledge at New York University.
Anil Dharker: Author of six books; columnist; Founder-Director, Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest
Business Jury
Anil Gupta: Grassroots innovation activist; Founder, Honey Bee Network; author; visiting faculty, IIM, Ahmedabad and IIT, Bombay, and a Padma Shri awardee for management education.
Kiran Karnik: Former President of Nasscom; a key figure in the growth of India’s IT industry, Member of the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, and a Padma Shri awardee.
Raghunath Mashelkar: One of India’s most renowned scientists; a technocrat, activist and visionary who has been honoured with the Padma Vibhushan.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Media executive and entrepreneur; Founder & Director, BOOM & IndiaSpend.
Mini Menon: Award-winning journalist and author; Co-Founder and Editor of Live History India.