Crossword Book Award 2013- Shortlist Announced -- WizSpk

MAHARASHTRA, India - Nov. 21, 2013 - PRLog -- Crossword Bookstore in Association with Principal Retirement Advisors announced the shortlist for the prestigious The Crossword Book Award 2013. This shortlist was announced across four categories which include Indian Fiction, Indian Non-Fiction, Indian Translation & Children’s Writing. The announcement was made by acclaimed noted people from the literary circuit Jaya Bhattacharji Rose, Ravinder Singh, Vaishali Mathur, Anuja Chauhan, & Vishwajyoti Ghosh. The 12th year of the awards saw an unprecedented 552 + entries during nominations this year making it the highest ever entries ever.

Author and editors present participated in a panel discussion on ‘Romance, Love, Violence’ which gave readers an insight on the on how these genres affect the Indian readers. Final winners will be announced on the award function to be held in Mumbai in December. The Crossword Book Award had also earlier released the ten shortlisted books for the popular awards that were also be announced during the same time.

Indian Fiction

· Em and The Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto, Aleph

· Boats on Land by Janice Pariat, Random House India

· The Illicit Happiness of Other People by Manu Joesph, Harper Collins India

· Difficult Pleasures by Anjum Hasan, Penguin Books India

· Not Only the Things That Have Happened by Mridula Koshy, Harper Collins India

Indian Non Fiction

· The Butterfly Generation by Palash Krishna Mehrotra, Rupa Publications

· The Price of Land by Sanjoy Chakravorty, Oxford University Press

· Our Moon Has Blood Clots by Rahul Pandita, Random House India

· Righteous Republic by Ananya Vajpeyi, Harvard Business Press

· From the Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Mishra, Penguin

Indian Language Translation:

· Fish in a Dwindling Lake by Ambai, Translated by Lakshmi Holmstrom, Penguin Books India

· A Life in Words by Ismat chughtai, Translated by Dr M Asaduddin, Penguin Books India

· A Life Long Ago by Sunanda Sikdar, Translated by Anchita Ghatak, Penguin Books India

· The Man Who Tried to Remember by Makarand Sathe, Translated by Shanta Gokhale, Penguin Books India

· Dozakhnama: Conversations in Hell by Rabishankar Bal, Translated by Arunava Sinha, Random House India

Children’s Writing:

· Moin the Monster Songster by Anushka Ravishankar, Duckbill

· The Stupendous Timetelling Superdog by Himanjali Sankar, Duckbill

· Wisha Wozzariter by Payal Kapadia, Penguin Books India

· What Happened to Regina That Night by Rahul Srivastava, Scholastic

· When Crows are White by Jerry Pinto, Scholastic

· Book Uncle and Me Uma Krishnaswami by Scholastic

· Taklu & Shroom by Ranjit Lal, Harper Collins India

Popular Award Nominations:

1. What Young India Wants by Chetan Bhagat (Rupa Publications)

2. Dongri to Dubai by S Hussain Zaidi (Roli Books)

3. The Day I Stopped Drinking Milk by Sudha Murty (Penguin Books India)

4. Poor Little Rich Slum by Rashmi Bansal & Deepak Gandhi (Westland Books)

5. F?@k Knows by shailendra Singh (Rupa Publications)

6. The Oath of the Vayuputras by Amish Tripathi (Westland Books)

7. The Bankster by Ravi Subramanian (Rupa Publications)

8. The Krishna Key by Ashwin Sanghi (Westland Books)

9. Asura by Anand Neelkantan (Leadstart Publishing)

10. Those Pricey Thakur Girls by Anuja Chauhan (Harper Collins India)

This year The Crossword Book Award 2013 followed the financial year module and considered entries published in India from 1^st January 2012 to 31^st March 2013. This year we considered 15 months for the entry process and from next year onwards entries from April 2013 to March 2014 will be considered eligible.

About the Awards

Crossword Book Award is the only Indian award that recognizes and rewards good writing and also actively promotes Indian authors and their books. Last year the Award received 329 valid entries in the above mentioned categories and this year we have received 552 valid entries, thus making the awards representative of the best of contemporary Indian literature.

When the book awards were launched in 1998, there was one cash prize of Rs. 2 lakhs for the best original work of fiction in English by an Indian author, and it was won by Allan Sealy for The Everest Hotel. In 1999, a new category was added Indian Language Fiction Translation into English and the cash prize was increased to 3 lakhs in each category. In 2005, two more award categories were added English Non-Fiction, as well as the Popular Award. In 2009 award for Indian Childrens writing was introduced thus making it the only Indian literary award that rewards authors across 5 different categories.

Each award carries a cash prize of Rs. 3 lakhs, a trophy and a citation. In the case of The Economist Crossword Translation Award, the author and the translator share the prize money equally. The Popular award has a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh & the trophy.

About Crossword:

Crossword, with Eighty Four stores, across Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Bhopal, Bengalooru, Chennai, Delhi, Durgapur, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kota, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur, Nasik, Pune, Siliguri, Udaipur, Vapi, Vadodara and Vijayawada is India’s fastest growing chain of bookstores & has pioneered the lifestyle bookstore concept in India. Crossword was ranked the 6th most admired retailer in India by Business world for the year 2006; it was the only book retailer in the top 10. Crossword won the Reid & Taylor Award for Best Retailer of the year – Leisure & Specialty at the India Retail Summit 2005 & 2007& 2009. It also won the Star Retailer Award for the Best Lifestyle Retailer in Books & Music in 2011. Crossword won the Retailer of the Year Award - Leisure (Books, Music and Gifts Category) at the Images Retail Awards 2005 & 2007& 2009. Crossword received the Federation of Indian Publishers Award for excellence in Publishing for the year 2004 on 18th June 2005 at the hands of Shri Arjun Singh, Minister of Human Resource Development.

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