Winners of Atta Galatta - Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize 2021

Bangalore, December 15, 2021: The Bangalore Literature Festival and Atta Galatta, the city-based bookstore and art-literature space, are proud to announce the winners of the Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize 2021.
 
The awards carry a total purse of Rs. 70,000 under the 7 categories of:
•         Best Fiction (English)
•         Best Non-Fiction (English)
•         Literary Achievement Award in Kannada
•         Best YA Writing – A new category introduced in 2021
•         Best Children’s Picture Book - A new category introduced in 2020
•         Popular Choice (English)
•         Best Cover Design
 
Winners take home an original trophy, Thought Beyond Words
 
Publishers submitted over 120 books for consideration under the category of Fiction (English), about 180 books for consideration under the category of Non-Fiction (English), about 50 books for YA Writing, about 70 books for Children’s picture books, about 50 books for Popular Choice (English) and about 40 books for Best Cover Design. A large reader-based subterranean jury put together the long-list from these submissions and another jury comprising of writers worked on the shortlist. The Popular Choice (English) award winner was selected on the basis of an online voting campaign.
 
For the Literary Achievement Award in Kannada award, the jury selects an author who has made a significant contribution to the Kannada language and literature in form, function and flavour
 
Announcing the winners for 2021
Best Fiction - Alipura- Gyan Chaturvedi, translated by Salim Yusufji (Juggernaut)
Best Non Fiction - Born a Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India - Ghazala Wahab (Aleph)
Achievement in Kannada Literature - Jogi
Best YA Writing - Saira Zariwala is Afraid - Shabnam Minwalla (Harper Children's)
Best Children’s Picture Book – The Girl Who Loved to Sing: Teejan Bai- written and illustrated by Lavanya Karthik (Duckbill)
Popular Choice - Unfinished: A Memoir - Priyanka Chopra Jonas (Penguin Viking)
Best Cover Design - Shadow Craft: Visual Aesthetics of Black and White Hindi Cinema – Cover Design by Kapil Gupta (Bloomsbury)
 
From the Jury
The jury for the fiction category was headed by writer and poet Mani Rao
There is a place between comedy and tragedy, between slick dreams and clumsy realities, between satire and a smile. This is Alipura. Gyan Chaturvedi raises a toast to, as well as exposes, the desperate hopes, schemes, and dramas of daily life in small town India.
 
 No detail escapes the narrator’s eye, and no character is spared. Thick descriptions fill scenes, and the language captures moments of living that we recognize but never think to articulate. The narrative spares no detail, and yet has momentum. Salim Yusufji’s translation keeps pace, often inventively breaking into a uniquely Hindian English in so swift and natural a manner that it seems self-made, and inevitable.
 
Gyan Chaturvedi and Salim Yusufji have finally happened to English. Baramasi is now Alipura
 
The jury for the non-fiction category was led by brand strategy speciaist and practitioner Harish Bijoor
There is a lot of truth here. A lot of stories. A lot of history as well. Ghazala Wahab presents a piece of work that is a must-read. A compelling piece of writing that starts with a captivating story and traces its way through a skilful set of pictures and words that evoke personal memories, deftly married to history.
 
This is a point-of-view book for sure. A Muslim point of view in modern India. A very vital point of view that needs to be read, understood, assimilated, debated and contrasted with hearsay, biases and images that normally colour lives on the other side of the fence. And that’s why this book is important. It creates for itself
an important place-holder in the mind of the modern him, her and they, bombarded endlessly by everything that is rooted in the extreme point of view.
 
I do believe this is a timely book that comes in troubled times. Every Hindu must read a Muslim-life book just as every Muslim must read a Hindu-life book. We know little of one another. At least not enough. In this gap of understanding and knowledge, breeds the myth and the bias. “Born a Muslim” helps fill this gap from a perspective that is clean, objective and not coloured by negativity or passion, of the rabid or less rabid kind even.
 
The jury for the YA and Children’s Picture Book category was led by Reena I Puri, editor-in-chief of Amar Chitra Katha
About the Children’s Picture Book Winner:
Teejan Bai is a simply written biography and in those simple, straightforward sentences lies a world of emotions, incidents, tragedies and triumphs.
 
Lavanya Karthik has told the life story of one of the millions of girl children who are born unwanted, refused nutrition, education or medical care and grow up to disappear unsung. But in Teejan Bai we have a little rebel who, despite all her troubles, must sing. And sing she does, fighting tradition and patriarchy, to become one of the most feted Pandavani singers in the country.
 
The author has managed to convey great emotion and thought in the simplest of words. The book itself becomes a song, having a rhythm of its own.
 Jhunjuni! Pagalpana!
 
Nowhere will the story sadden the child. It is a song of joy.
 
The book is great to be read aloud to younger children. What is best is that as they grow and read it, perhaps more than once, they will make new discoveries and get fresh insights into the story which is exactly what a good story is all about.
 
About the YA Book Winner:
It was a tough call between Debbie G  and Saira Zariwala! In the end the latter inched forward.
 
Shabnam Minwalla has spun a tale that keeps you gripped with its sudden, unexpected movements. If horror and humour could be combined, it is done most skilfully here.
 
Shabnam's protagonist, Saira Zariwala, is handed a mystery on her newly acquired phone and the reader is drawn into its sinister depths with a feeling of horror and bouts of nervous laughter.
 
Perfect for the young adult. Shabnam's excellent command over the English language, takes the reader from the world of teenage angst to the difficult-to-craft genre of mystery and horror.
 
The jury for the cover design category was led by visual artist Kalyani Ganapathy
It was a tough choice between Desi Delicacies and Shadow Craft: Visual Aesthetics of Black and White Cinema.
 
In the end it came down to technical details. The winner is Shadow Craft: Visual Aesthetics of Black and White Cinema.
 
It wins because of strong clarity in communication and very attractive positioning of its title. Even without a background in film I can tell what this book is going to be about!
 
The past winners of the Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize are
For year 2020:
Fiction – Deepa Anappara for Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (Penguin Hamish Hamilton)
Non Fiction – Ashutosh Bhardwaj for The Death Script: Dreams and Delusions in Naxal Country (4th Estate)
Popular Choice – Milind Soman with Roopa Pai for Made in India: A Memoir (Penguin eBury)
Achievement in Kannada Literature - Vaidehi
Cover Design – Gunjan Ahlawat for Rising Heat (Penguin Hamish Hamilton)
 
 
Fiction - Vinod Kumar Shukla for Blue Is Like Blue: Stories (Translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Sara Rai) HarperCollins India
Non Fiction – Tony Joseph for Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From , Juggernaut
Popular Choice – Gaur Gopal Das for Life's Amazing Secrets: How to Find Balance and Purpose in Your Life, Penguin Ananda
Achievement in Kannada Literature - Dr. H.S. Venkatesha Murthy
 
For year 2019:
Fiction - Vinod Kumar Shukla for Blue Is Like Blue: Stories (Translated by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and Sara Rai) HarperCollins India
Non Fiction – Tony Joseph for Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From , Juggernaut
Popular Choice – Gaur Gopal Das for Life's Amazing Secrets: How to Find Balance and Purpose in Your Life, Penguin Ananda
Achievement in Kannada Literature - Dr. H.S. Venkatesha Murthy
 
For year 2018:
Fiction – Jayant Kaikini (Translated by Tejaswini Niranjana) for No Presents Please, Harper Collins and Baburao Bagul (Translated by Jerry Pinto) for When I Hid my Caste, Speaking Tiger
Non Fiction – Pavan K Varma for Adi Shankaracharya, Hinduism’s Greatest Thinker, Tranquebar
Popular Choice – Ashwin Sanghi for Keepers of The Kalachakra, Westland
Achievement in Kannada Literature – Jayant Kaikini
 
For year 2017:
Fiction – Anees Salim for The Small-Town Sea, Penguin Random House India
Non Fiction – Ruskin Bond for Lone Fox Dancing, Speaking Tiger
Popular Choice – Twinkle Khanna for The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad, Juggernaut
Achievement in Kannada Literature – Bolwar Mahammad Kunhi
 
For year 2016:
Fiction – Perumal Murugan for Pyre, Penguin Random House
Non Fiction – Vinay Sitapati for Half-Lion, Penguin Random House
Achievement in Kannada Literature – K.V Tirumalesh
 
For year 2015:
Fiction – Aatish Taseer for The Way Things Were, Picador
Non Fiction – Akshaya Mukul for Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India, HarperCollins India
Achievement in Kannada Literature – Prathibha Nandakumar