Saturday, 30 September 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
Valley of Words Shabdavali announced the winners of all eight categories of its book awards—celebrating the best of English literature and Hindi Sahitya. The VoW Book Awards 2023 is currently in its seventh edition as one of the most comprehensive independent literary award programmes in India.
Over 600 nominations were received in 2023 from 70 publishing houses across the country. The selection of the books involved a three-stage process. The critically-acclaimed longlist of ten books per category was brought down to a final five in the shortlist. The final winners were selected through an ongoing process which began in August this year. Festival director Sanjeev Chopra thanked the jury members Rudranghsu Mukherjee (English Non-Fiction), Satish Aikant (English Fiction), Pooja Marwah (Writings for Young Adults), Alka Saraogi (Hindi Non-Fiction), Neelakshi Singh (Hindi Fiction), Mamta Nainy (Writings for Children), Anjan Ray (Translations to Hindi) and Ira Pande (Translations into English). He further added, “The VoW book awards are an iconic offering in the sense that each of the selected books tells a story of identity, of imagination, of aspiration, of times that have gone by, of issues that are contemporary and of the future as well , including the world of Chat GPT.”
The entries chosen for the award include No Way In by Udayan Mukherjee in English Fiction, The Journey of Hindi Language Journalism by Mrinal Pande in English Non-Fiction, Shahar Se Das Kilometre by Neelesh Raghuwanshi in Hindi Fiction, Dinank Kay Binaby Ushakiran Khan in Hindi Non-Fiction, Children of the Hidden Land by Mandira Shah in Writings For Young Adults, Juhpli’s Honey Box by Achintyarup Ray in Writings/Picture Books for Children, Bhaaga Hua Ladka translated by Amrita Bera in Translation into Hindi and The Bride: The Maithili Classic Kanyadan translated by Lalit Kumar in the Translation into English category. The finale of the Valley of Words/Shabdavali will be held in Dehradun on December 16 and 17.
