Wed Jan 15 14:51:41 UTC 2025: ## Kalinga Literary Festival Announces Longlist for Prestigious Book Awards

**New Delhi, January 15, 2025** – The Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF) has unveiled the longlist for its annual KLF Book Awards, celebrating the best in contemporary Indian literature. Over 2,000 nominations were received for the awards, which recognize excellence in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, children’s literature, business writing, translations, and debut works in English, Hindi, and Odia.

The prestigious awards, with winners receiving a prize of Rs 1 lakh each, will feature six categories in Hindi and seven in English. The English longlist includes notable titles such as Vikas Swarup’s “The Girl with the Seven Lives,” Upamanyu Chatterjee’s “Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of Life,” and Dr. Vikram Sampath’s “Tipu Sultan: The Saga of Mysore’s Interregnum (1760-1799),” showcasing the diversity of Indian literature. The Hindi longlist features works like Anant Vijay’s “Over The Top: OTT ka Mayajaal” and Garima Srivastava’s “Hindi Navjagran: Itihas, Galp Aur Stree-Prashn.”

The shortlist will be announced on January 30th, 2025, with winners revealed at an award ceremony on February 15th, 2025, at the India International Centre (IIC) in New Delhi. The Odia longlist will be announced in early February during the Kalinga Literary Festival in Bhubaneswar from March 21st to 23rd, 2025. This year’s festival will feature Indonesia as a country partner and is expected to draw over half a million attendees.

KLF Founder and Director Rashmi Ranjan Parida emphasized the festival’s commitment to fostering transformative ideas through literature, while CEO Ashok Kumar Bal highlighted its role in bridging cultural and linguistic divides. The KLF Book Awards, they stated, provide a platform to recognize exceptional talent and deepen appreciation for literature across languages.

Read More