Lit in Translation

All prizes India

Sahitya Akademi Award

साहित्य अकादेमी पुरस्कार

India · For books in Assamese, Bangla, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, or Urdu

Awarded each December by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, to one book in each of the 24 languages it recognizes, English included, in any genre. This site lists the winners that are novels or short stories.

The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, was set up by the Government of India in 1952 and inaugurated in New Delhi in 1954. Its award goes each year to books of literary merit in the 24 languages the Akademi supports: 22 languages of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, plus English and Rajasthani. Languages joined over time, among them Sindhi in 1956, Maithili in 1966, Dogri in 1969, Manipuri in 1971, Konkani and Nepali in 1975, Santali in 2004 and Bodo in 2005. Each language has its own winner, which may be a book of any genre, so a year brings up to 24 winners. Each winner receives a plaque, designed by Satyajit Ray, and a cash prize of 100,000 rupees.

Winners in English
57 of 185
Years on this site
2000–2025

Winners and shortlist

Stage

2025 5 books

2024 1 book

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2024 · Winner

    Spirit Nights

    Spirit Nights

    Easterine Kire · 63 when first published

    Novel · 180 pages · Speculative, Coming of age

    AI-generated summary:In a Chang Naga village in Nagaland, where people live close to the spirit world, word spreads that a tiger has swallowed the sun, and the villagers are plunged into a darkness that will not lift.

2023 6 books

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2023 · Winner

    நீர்வழிப் படூஉம்

    Neervazhi Paduvum

    Title translated by AI:“Borne Along by the Water”

    Devibharathi · 63 when first published

    Novel · Family

    AI-generated summary:Drawing on the author's own family, the novel follows his mother, father, uncle and aunt and the people of Udayampalayam, a village near Tiruppur in western Tamil Nadu with its own dialect and customs.

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2023 · Winner

    Requiem in Raga Janki

    Requiem in Raga Janki

    Neelum Saran Gour · 63 when first published

    Novel · 368 pages · Historical

    AI-generated summary:A singer's life in early twentieth-century North India: scarred by an attack in childhood, a girl from Benares is taken to Allahabad to train under a demanding ustad and rises from the courtesans' quarter to fame.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2023 · Winner

    मुझे पहचानो

    Mujhe Pahachaano

    Title translated by AI:“Recognize Me”

    Sanjeev · 73 when first published

    Novel · 176 pages

    AI-generated summary:A novel that takes on the custom of sati, showing how notions of caste, class, blood and male-guarded sexual purity, and the bond between religion and money, keep it alive, even among women who accept it as tradition.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2023 · Winner

    জলের উপর পানি

    Jaler Upar Pani

    Title translated by AI:“Water upon Water”

    Swapnamoy Chakraborty · 70 when first published

    Novel · 432 pages · Historical, Migration

    AI-generated summary:A novel of resettlement and rehabilitation in the land that became Bangladesh after the partition of India.

2022 9 books

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2022 · Winner

    Dream Mirage

    خواب سراب · Khwab Saraab

    Anis Ashfaq

    Novel · 460 pages

    AI-generated summary:A man in Lucknow who grew up on old people's tales of the courtesan Umrao Jaan becomes convinced her story was never fully told, and sets out through the old city to find the version its first chronicler kept back.

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2022 · Winner

    All the Lives We Never Lived

    All the Lives We Never Lived

    Anuradha Roy · 51 when first published

    Novel · 336 pages · Family, Historical, Politics

    AI-generated summary:In a small Indian town in the 1930s, a nine-year-old boy is left behind when his mother, a would-be painter trapped in her marriage to a nationalist schoolteacher, departs for a new life abroad.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2022 · Winner

    காலா பாணி

    Kaala Paani

    Title translated by AI:“Black Water”

    M. Rajendran · 61 when first published

    Novel · 535 pages · Historical, War, Politics

    AI-generated summary:After the British crush the Marudhu brothers' rebellion in the forests of Kalaiyarkoil in 1801, the Sivaganga ruler Periya Udaiyanna Thevar, Chinna Marudhu's son Duraisamy and some seventy others are shipped into exile in Penang.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2022 · Winner

    अमृतवेल

    Amrutvel

    Maya Kharangate · 60 when first published

    Novel · Family, Historical, Politics

    AI-generated summary:In Goa before its liberation from Portuguese rule, the widow Sitabai struggles to bring up her children within a Hindu joint family after her husband's death, while other women of the household join the freedom movement.

2021 8 books

2020 11 books

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2020 · Winner

    ਆਮ ਖ਼ਾਸ

    Aam Khass

    Title translated by AI:“Common and Special”

    Gurdev Singh Rupana · 82 when first published

    Short stories · Politics

    AI-generated summary:Stories of ordinary and marginalized Punjabis, among them Dalits, migrant labourers and slum dwellers, and of those who claim power over them, in a society reshaped by the fading of socialist ideals and the rise of globalization.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2020 · Winner

    اماوس میں خواب

    Amawas Main Khwab

    Title translated by AI:“Dreams on a Moonless Night”

    Hussain-ul-Haque · 68 when first published

    Novel · 338 pages · Politics

    AI-generated summary:After losing his whole family in a communal riot, Ismael Rajai rebuilds his life through friendships that cross religion and caste, from Bombay and Bhiwandi to a college lectureship in Bihar.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2020 · Winner

    A Woman Burnt

    செல்லாத பணம் · Sellaatha Panam

    Imayam · 54 when first published

    Novel · 222 pages · Family

    AI-generated summary:In Puducherry, Revathi, an engineering graduate from a respectable family, lies badly burnt in a hospital ward, years after marrying an auto-rickshaw driver her family refused to accept.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2020 · Winner

    वैशाली

    Vaishali

    Mahesh Chandra Sharma Gautam · 68 when first published

    Novel · 521 pages

    AI-generated summary:A novel of present-day society in which women's advance stirs envy in men, arguing that women's rise cannot be held back and that men must change how they think about them.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2020 · Winner

    उद्या

    Udya

    Title translated by AI:“Tomorrow”

    Nanda Khare · 69 when first published

    Novel · 285 pages · Speculative, Politics

    AI-generated summary:In a near-future India run by corporate monopolies and the security state, where privacy has all but vanished, a clerk, a reporter, a military rebel, a corporate climber and a teacher make their way through a watched world.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2020 · Winner

    किरायको कोख

    Kirayako Kokh

    Title translated by AI:“Rented Womb”

    Shankar Dev Dhakal

    Novel · 130 pages · Migration, Politics

    AI-generated summary:Mixing fact and fiction, a novel about surrogacy and about the suffering of the Nepali-speaking refugees driven out of Bhutan in the 1990s.

2019 10 books

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2019 · Winner

    Akh Yaad Akh Qayamat

    Title translated by AI:“One Memory, One Doomsday”

    Abdul Ahad Hajini · 67 when first published

    Short stories

    AI-generated summary:Short stories set in Kashmir, drawn from the region's social life and centred on human relationships and the principles people hold to.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2019 · Winner

    శప్తభూమి

    Septabhoomi

    Title translated by AI:“The Cursed Land”

    Bandi Narayana Swamy · 65 when first published

    Novel · Historical, Politics

    AI-generated summary:In the drought-ridden Anantapur country of the eighteenth century, ruled by the Hande chiefs, the region's oppressed castes live through famine, the feuds of local chieftains and the arrival of the East India Company.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2019 · Winner

    சூல்

    Sool

    Title translated by AI:“Gestation”

    Cho Dharman · 63 when first published

    Novel · 500 pages · Nature

    AI-generated summary:In Urulaikudi, a village in the dry black-soil country of southern Tamil Nadu, the farmers' lives, quarrels and lore turn around the rain-fed lake that waters their fields, and around its slow ruin.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2019 · Winner

    Jeejal

    Title translated by AI:“Mother”

    Ishwar Moorjani · 76 when first published

    Short stories

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2019 · Winner

    Chanakya

    চাণক্য · Chanakya

    Joyasree Goswami Mahanta · 54 when first published

    Novel · 578 pages · Historical, Politics

    AI-generated summary:After twelve-year-old Vishnugupta finds his father's body, he goes on to study and then teach at Taxila, and becomes Chanakya, the strategist and royal adviser of ancient India who sets out to clear the name of Magadha.

2018 7 books

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2018 · Winner

    The Blind Lady's Descendants

    The Blind Lady's Descendants

    Anees Salim · 44 when first published

    Novel · 297 pages · Family

    AI-generated summary:In a small coastal town in India, Amar, the youngest son of a Muslim family whose parents have stopped speaking to each other, grows up in a crumbling house called the Bungalow and, at twenty-six, sets out to tell his story.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2018 · Winner

    Post Box No. 203, Nala Sopara

    पोस्ट बॉक्स नं. 203 नाला सोपारा · Post Box No. 203 - Naala Sopara

    Chitra Mudgal

    Novel · 208 pages

    AI-generated summary:Told in letters, the story of Vinod, called Binni, a gifted child born transgender who is separated from his family and made to live among a band of eunuchs, facing deprivation and humiliation.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2018 · Winner

    Bhagirath

    Inderjeet Kesar · 67 when first published

    Novel · 261 pages

    AI-generated summary:Dharm Chand, a simple and honest village boy, leaves for a small town, rises to a high post in the administration and devotes himself to the welfare of his home region and its people.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2018 · Winner

    Aakh

    Title translated by AI:“Scar”

    Mushtaq Ahmad Mushtaq · 51 when first published

    Short stories

    AI-generated summary:Eighteen stories of present-day Kashmir, about a society reshaped by forces from within and without, and about old traditions and cultural values left scarred.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2018 · Winner

    Rohzin

    روحزن · Rohzin

    Rahman Abbas · 44 when first published

    Novel · 256 pages · Love

    AI-generated summary:Asrar, a young man newly arrived in Mumbai, discovers the city's hidden underworld and falls suddenly in love with Hina, whom he meets at the Haji Ali Dargah, as the 2005 floods close in.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2018 · Winner

    சஞ்சாரம்

    Sanchaaram

    Title translated by AI:“Wandering”

    S. Ramakrishnan

    Novel

    AI-generated summary:In the arid karisal country of southern Tamil Nadu, two nadaswaram players, the patient, married Rathinam and the young, hot-headed Pakkiri, eke out a living at weddings and temple festivals until an act of revenge for a caste insult turns them into fugitives.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2018 · Winner

    The Last Few Days of the Blue God

    শ্রীকৃষ্ণের শেষ কটা দিন · Srikrishner Sesh Kata Din

    Sanjib Chattopadhyay

    Novel · 104 pages

    AI-generated summary:After the Kurukshetra war, as the grieving Gandhari curses Krishna and foretells the ruin of his Yadava clan, a devoted narrator looks back over the god's life while his time on earth draws to a close.

2017 7 books

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2017 · Winner

    دخمہ

    Dakhma

    Title translated by AI:“Tower of Silence”

    Baig Ehsas · 67 when first published

    Short stories · 168 pages

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2017 · Winner

    মৰিয়াহোলা

    Moriahola

    Jayanta Madhab Bora

    Novel · Historical

    AI-generated summary:Muslim soldiers captured in an Ahom king's war with the Mughals are kept in Assam, set to beat brass and then to grow rice; the novel follows the Brahmaputra village that takes its name from them, a place the river later erodes away.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2017 · Winner

    ദൈവത്തിന്റെ പുസ്തകം

    Daivathinte Pusthakam

    Title translated by AI:“God's Book”

    K. P. Ramanunni · 60 when first published

    Novel · 686 pages

    AI-generated summary:In an age torn by war and runaway technology, gods step down from the faiths of love into the human world: the Prophet Muhammad and Krishna become characters in a story that moves freely through time and place.

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2017 · Winner

    The Black Hill

    The Black Hill

    Mamang Dai · 57 when first published

    Novel · 296 pages · Historical, Love

    AI-generated summary:In the mid-nineteenth-century hills between Assam and Tibet, an Abor girl, Gimur, runs away with Kajinsha of the Mishmee tribe, while a French priest, Father Krick, keeps trying to cross their land to found a mission in Tibet.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2017 · Winner

    ਸਲੋਅ ਡਾਊਨ

    Slow Down

    Nachhattar · 62 when first published

    Novel · 159 pages

    AI-generated summary:In Delhi, a recession suddenly leaves ambitious young people who came to the city for work without jobs, and they struggle to keep going.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2017 · Winner

    Thwisam

    Rita Boro · 39 when first published

    Novel

2016 8 books

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2016 · Winner

    आलोक

    Aalok

    Title translated by AI:“Light”

    Asaram Lomate

    Short stories · 163 pages

    AI-generated summary:Six stories of village life and the people of the rural countryside.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2016 · Winner

    ಸ್ವಾತಂತ್ರ್ಯದ ಓಟ

    Swatantryada Ota

    Title translated by AI:“The Run for Freedom”

    Bolwar Mahammad Kunhi · 61 when first published

    Novel · 1086 pages · Historical, Politics

    AI-generated summary:At Partition, Chand Ali, a Muslim blacksmith working for a Sikh employer in Lahore, sets out to see two Sikh sisters to safety, is carried off to Delhi under a Hindu name and ends up making a new life in a South Indian village.

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2016 · Winner

    Em and the Big Hoom

    Em and the Big Hoom

    Jerry Pinto · 46 when first published

    Novel · 240 pages · Family

    AI-generated summary:In Bombay, a young man tries to make sense of his mother Imelda, a beedi-smoking, singing force whose bipolar disorder can turn her monstrous, and of her long love affair with his father, Augustine.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2016 · Winner

    पारिजात

    Paarijat

    Nasira Sharma · 63 when first published

    Novel · 504 pages

    AI-generated summary:A longing shared by Rohan and Ruhi runs through a story of old and new relationships, in which history links past and present and characters who look into the past end up searching for themselves and trying to mend broken ties.

2015 6 books

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2015 · Winner

    Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer

    Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer

    Cyrus Mistry · 56 when first published

    Novel · 247 pages · Love, Historical

    AI-generated summary:In Bombay before independence, the son of a Parsi priest gives up his family’s standing to marry the daughter of a corpse bearer, and takes up the shunned work of carrying the dead to the Towers of Silence.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2015 · Winner

    Samayaka Prativimbaharu

    Title translated by AI:“Reflections of Time”

    Gupta Pradhan · 66 when first published

    Short stories

    AI-generated summary:Stories of ordinary people caught between social reality and the contradictions of their own minds: a stranger searches a protest-torn town for drinking water, and a teacher mistakes a pupil's look for mockery.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2015 · Winner

    ਮਾਤ ਲੋਕ

    Maat Lok

    Title translated by AI:“The Mortal World”

    Jaswinder Singh · 57 when first published

    Novel · Politics

    AI-generated summary:Punjab in the late 1980s: against the political turmoil of those years, the novel looks at the ethical and cultural strains that rapid economic and social change brings to the region.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2015 · Winner

    Hangwoman: Everyone Loves a Good Hanging

    ആരാച്ചാർ · Aarachar

    K. R. Meera · 42 when first published

    Novel · 448 pages · Family, Coming of age

    AI-generated summary:In Kolkata, Chetna, a young woman from a family that has supplied hangmen for generations, is chosen as India’s first woman executioner and becomes a television sensation as the day of her first hanging approaches.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2015 · Winner

    The Liberation of Sita

    విముక్త · Vimukta

    Volga · 60 when first published

    Short stories · 132 pages

    AI-generated summary:Cast out by Rama and raising her two sons in Valmiki's hermitage, Sita meets women from the margins of the Ramayana, Surpanakha, Ahalya, Renuka and Urmila, whose stories of being wronged by men make her rethink her own life.

2014 7 books

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2014 · Winner

    The Loneliness of Hira Barua

    মৰিয়ম আষ্টিন অথবা হীৰা বৰুৱা · Mariam Astin Athaba Hira Barua

    Arupa Patangia Kalita · 56 when first published

    Short stories · 240 pages · War, Politics

    AI-generated summary:Fifteen stories of women in strife-torn Assam, among them an ageing widow who talks to her Tibetan spaniel and fears she is becoming a lonely Englishwoman she once heard about.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2014 · Winner

    அஞ்ஞாடி

    Agnaadi

    Poomani · 65 when first published

    Novel · 1066 pages · Historical, Family

    AI-generated summary:In the black-soil country of southern Tamil Nadu in the early 19th century, a farmer’s son and a washerman’s son become friends, and their families’ lives are drawn into a century of caste conflict.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2014 · Winner

    विनायक

    Vinayak

    Ramesh Chandra Shah · 74 when first published

    Novel · 263 pages · Family

    AI-generated summary:Vinayak, a fifty-seven-year-old college department head in Bombay who calls himself a late starter, returns from a dreamlike year of work in Wales to a wife, two sons leaving abroad and approaching retirement.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2014 · Winner

    Hashiye Par: For a Tree to Grow

    हाशिये पर · Hashiye Par

    Shailender Singh

    Novel · 160 pages · Family, Politics

    AI-generated summary:On the banks of the Chenab in Jammu, Madan, a sickly fisherman from a landless community, lives with his wife and four children in a reed hut and dreams of a brick house and an education for them.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2014 · Winner

    A Preface to Man

    മനുഷ്യന് ഒരു ആമുഖം · Manushyanu Oru Aamukham

    Subhash Chandran · 38 when first published

    Novel · 480 pages · Family, Historical, Politics

    AI-generated summary:Newly widowed, Ann Mary goes back to the letters her husband Jithendran sent her while they were courting, in which he set down the history of his family and of Thachanakkara, his village in central Kerala.

2013 4 books

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2013 · Winner

    ਨਿਰਵਾਣ

    Nirvaan

    Manmohan · 48 when first published

    Novel · Love, Historical

    AI-generated summary:Two couples from two different epochs, Milind and Kamala and Ananda and Pankaja, hold on to their love against hostile circumstances and social barriers while searching for an ideology to live by.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2013 · Winner

    मिलजुल मन

    Miljul Man

    Title translated by AI:“Mingled Hearts”

    Mridula Garg · 71 when first published

    Novel · 319 pages · Family, Autofiction

    AI-generated summary:Mogra tells the story of her elder sister Gul and their Jain family in Delhi, from girlhood through college, as a boisterous uncle moves into the house and reshapes their lives.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2013 · Winner

    கொற்கை

    Korkai

    R.N. Joe D'Cruz · 40 when first published

    Novel · 1174 pages · Historical, Family

    AI-generated summary:In Korkai, once a great Pandya port and now a seaside village in Tamil Nadu, three generations of Parathavar seafaring families live through the changes of the twentieth century.

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2013 · Winner

    Laburnum for My Head

    Laburnum for My Head

    Temsula Ao · 64 when first published

    Short stories · 120 pages · War

    AI-generated summary:Eight stories from India's North East: a widow who wants a laburnum tree to bloom over her grave, a hunter haunted by his prey, a servant boy who sells an airfield, and villagers caught between insurgents and the army.

2012 8 books

2011 3 books

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2011 · Winner

    Swapna Saraswatha

    ಸ್ವಪ್ನ ಸಾರಸ್ವತ · Swapna Saraswata

    Gopalakrishna Pai

    Novel · Historical, Migration, Family

    AI-generated summary:After the Portuguese conquer Goa and begin forced conversions and the destruction of temples, Vittu Pai of the village of Verane leaves at night with a few Gaud Saraswat families to save their faith and lives.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2011 · Winner

    One Last Pledge

    रेहन पर रग्घू · Rehan Per Raghu

    Kashinath Singh · 71 when first published

    Novel · 140 pages · Family, Politics

    AI-generated summary:Raghunath's orderly, successful life has gone to plan until a sudden turn lets loose ambitions in his own world that begin to break the bonds and tenderness around him, in a story reaching from village to city to America.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2011 · Winner

    காவல் கோட்டம்

    Kaval Kottam

    Title translated by AI:“The Guard Fort”

    Su. Venkatesan · 38 when first published

    Novel · Historical

    AI-generated summary:In Thadhanur, a village near Madurai, the Kallar people clash and bargain with the Telugu Nayak rulers, from the Nayak period into the early 20th century.

2010 3 books

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2010 · Winner

    Book of Rachel

    Book of Rachel

    Esther David · 61 when first published

    Novel · 197 pages · Family

    AI-generated summary:Rachel, an elderly Bene Israel widow, lives alone by the sea near Bombay, tending the village synagogue and cooking the old Jewish dishes while her children and neighbours have left for Israel.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2010 · Winner

    The Walls of Delhi

    मोहन दास · Mohan Das

    Uday Prakash

    Novella · 227 pages · Satire, Politics

    AI-generated summary:Mohandas, a college graduate from a low caste, keeps losing out to higher-caste rivals; when he finally lands a job, one of them steals his identity to take it from him.

2009 4 books

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2009 · Winner

    কথা ৰত্নাকৰ

    Katha Ratnakara

    Dhrubajyoti Bora

    Novel · 392 pages · Crime, Politics, Coming of age

    AI-generated summary:In a village in Assam after independence, Moina, a Kaibarta boy humiliated by a higher-caste classmate as low-born, loses his schooling when his only supporter dies and drifts into theft and banditry.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2009 · Winner

    Draupadi

    ద్రౌపది · Draupadi

    Yarlagadda Lakshmi Prasad · 53 when first published

    Novel · 259 pages · Love, Family, War

    AI-generated summary:On a morning in the last days of the Kurukshetra war, Draupadi, stricken by the slaughter, asks herself what part she played in bringing it about and looks back over her life as wife of the five Pandavas.

2008 8 books

2007 10 books

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2007 · Winner

    इन्हीं हथियारों से

    Inhin Hathiyaron Se

    Title translated by AI:“With These Very Weapons”

    Amarkant · 78 when first published

    Novel · Historical, Politics

    AI-generated summary:In Ballia district of eastern Uttar Pradesh during the Quit India movement of 1942, ordinary villagers and townspeople are drawn into the revolt against British rule.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2007 · Winner

    दिका

    Dika

    Title translated by AI:“Direction”

    Devidas Kadam

    Novel · Family

    AI-generated summary:When his father, a police constable, collapses and dies on duty, young Deepak has to take on the care of his widowed mother and his three younger sisters.

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2007 · Winner

    Disorderly Women

    Disorderly Women

    Malathi Rao · 75 when first published

    Novel · Family, Historical

    AI-generated summary:In India before independence, four women of a Kannada Brahmin family, from different generations, push against the limits their society sets for them.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2007 · Winner

    Santanukulanandan

    শান্তনুকুলনন্দন · Santanukulanandan

    Purabi Bormudoi · 55 when first published

    Novel · 250 pages · Historical

    AI-generated summary:In the ancient Brahmaputra valley, a novel told largely through dialogue traces how the great river came to be and how it got its name, as peoples, faiths and kingdoms meet along its banks.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2007 · Winner

    Tshen

    Title translated by AI:“Rupture”

    Ratan Lal Shant

    Short stories

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2007 · Winner

    അടയാളങ്ങൾ

    Adayalangal

    Title translated by AI:“Signs”

    Sethu · 64 when first published

    Novel · Family

    AI-generated summary:Priyamvada Menon, a capable HR head at a family-run company, raises her daughter alone until a friendship with an older mentor turns the girl against her.

2006 8 books

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2006 · Winner

    Dhruvaputra: The Son of Dhruva

    ধ্রুবপুত্র · Dhrubaputra

    Amar Mitra · 51 when first published

    Novel · 668 pages · Historical

    AI-generated summary:In ancient Ujjayini, a city parched by years without rain, the gifted son of Dhruva is driven into exile after crossing a powerful merchant, and the people wait for the monsoon to return.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2006 · Winner

    भूमी

    Bhoomi

    Title translated by AI:“Land”

    Asha Bage · 65 when first published

    Novel · 262 pages · Family

    AI-generated summary:A girl from Kadalur, a fishing village on the Tamil Nadu coast, loses both her parents and has to leave for Mumbai to live with her aunt.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2006 · Winner

    द्रोह

    Droha

    Title translated by AI:“Treachery”

    Bhim Dahal · 48 when first published

    Novel · Politics, Crime

    AI-generated summary:In a rural block of Sikkim after the state joins India, a village priest turned ruling-party legislator forgets his old neighbours, while a landgrabber who buys his favour preys on the poor.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2006 · Winner

    काठ

    Kaath

    Title translated by AI:“Wood”

    Bibhuti Anand

    Short stories · 128 pages

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2006 · Winner

    The Sari Shop

    The Sari Shop

    Rupa Bajwa · 28 when first published

    Novel · 240 pages · Satire

    AI-generated summary:Ramchand, an orphaned assistant in one of Amritsar's best sari shops, spends his days unrolling silks for wealthy women who barely notice him, until an errand to a rich family's house stirs his longing for another life.

2005 12 books

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2005 · Winner

    తనమార్గం

    Tana Margam

    Title translated by AI:“Her Own Path”

    Abburi Chayadevi · 69 when first published

    Short stories · 240 pages

    AI-generated summary:Stories of women whose lives are exploited under the cover of family ties and duties.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2005 · Winner

    கல்மரம்

    Kalmaram

    Title translated by AI:“Stone Tree”

    G. Thilakavathi · 49 when first published

    Novel · 192 pages

    AI-generated summary:The lives of the labourers who raise temples, towers and modern high-rises, yet go without a roof, clothing or enough to eat, and the search for a way out of their poverty.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2005 · Winner

    क्याप

    Kyap

    Manohar Shyam Joshi · 68 when first published

    Novel · Love

    AI-generated summary:In a newly created district of the central Himalayas, a police officer and the mafia boss who was his sworn enemy are found dead side by side near a remote shrine, and a local narrator sets out to explain how it came to happen.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2005 · Winner

    भांगरसाळ

    Bhangarsall

    N. Shivdas · 54 when first published

    Short stories

    AI-generated summary:Stories of Goan people from village farmers to the city's well-to-do, among them a sketch of a mismatched married couple and a tale drawn from a trip to Kolkata; the title names a fragrant rice once grown in Goa's fields.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2005 · Winner

    ತೇರು

    Teru

    Title translated by AI:“The Temple Chariot”

    Raghavendra Patil

    Novel · Historical, Politics

    AI-generated summary:A Bangalore journalist from the Gokak region meets an old man who tells him the history of the village of Dharamanatti, ruled for generations by a family of Desais who built its Vitthala temple and the chariot drawn at its yearly festival.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2005 · Winner

    Silent Lips, Murmuring Hearts

    মৌন ওঁঠ মুখৰ হৃদয় · Mouna Ounth Mukhar Hriday

    Yeshe Dorjee Thongchi · 49 when first published

    Novel · 189 pages · Love

    AI-generated summary:In the hills of what is now Arunachal Pradesh, Sherdukpen, Nyishi and Monpa villagers wary of one another are hired to build a mountain road to Bomdila, and the leader of the Sherdukpen gang falls for a Nyishi girl promised to another man.

2004 8 books

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2004 · Winner

    కాలరేఖలు

    Kalarekhalu

    Title translated by AI:“Lines of Time”

    Ampasayya Naveen · 61 when first published

    Novel · 605 pages · Historical, Politics

    AI-generated summary:In a Telangana village of the 1940s, a boy watches the world around him change as the Andhra Mahasabha, the peasants' armed struggle and the Razakars of the Nizam's rule draw his family and neighbours into history.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2004 · Winner

    अथांग

    Athang

    Title translated by AI:“Fathomless”

    Jayanti Naik · 40 when first published

    Short stories · 162 pages

    AI-generated summary:Seventeen stories, some steeped in the customs and festivals of village Goa, others about educated townspeople, with characters the author met as a teacher in Vasco, as a student in Mysore and while collecting folklore in Goa's hills.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2004 · Winner

    Baromaas: Twelve Enduring Months

    बारोमास · Baromas

    Sadanand Deshmukh

    Novel · 381 pages · Family

    AI-generated summary:In rural Maharashtra, the educated young sons of a farming family find no work and no future, caught between the old ways of the village and a changing agriculture, amid poverty, ignorance and exploitation.

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2004 · Winner

    The Mammaries of the Welfare State

    The Mammaries of the Welfare State

    Upamanyu Chatterjee · 41 when first published

    Novel · 437 pages · Satire, Politics

    AI-generated summary:Agastya Sen, now a jaded officer of the Indian Administrative Service, cannot even get a room in the capital before he is posted as Collector to Madna, the small town where he trained, just as plague breaks out there.

2003 10 books

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2003 · Winner

    The Inexhaustible

    અખેપાતર · Akhepatar

    Bindu Bhatt · 45 when first published

    Novel · 340 pages · Historical, Family

    AI-generated summary:An elderly Brahmin woman comes back to her native village in Saurashtra and, lodging at its shrine, relives a life marked by her family's move to Karachi and their flight from the city during Partition.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2003 · Winner

    Unfathomable

    अथाह · Athah

    Bindya Subba

    Novel · 123 pages

    AI-generated summary:In a mental hospital, patients branded schizophrenic and shut away from the world each carry a private history of damage whose causes stay hidden, sometimes even from themselves.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2003 · Winner

    Partitions

    कितने पाकिस्तान · Kitne Pakistan

    Kamleshwar · 68 when first published

    Novel · 367 pages · Historical, Politics

    AI-generated summary:In a court that stands outside time and place, an unnamed man of letters sits as judge while figures from across history are called to answer for the partitions and bloodshed their decisions left behind.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2003 · Winner

    ആലാഹയുടെ പെണ്മക്കൾ

    Alahayude Penmakkal

    Title translated by AI:“Alaha's Daughters”

    Sarah Joseph

    Novel · 149 pages

    AI-generated summary:Annie, an eight-year-old girl in Kokkanchira, tells of the people around her, a marginalised community pushed out of their homes and livelihoods in the name of urban growth and development.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2003 · Winner

    परीघ

    Parigh

    Title translated by AI:“Circumference”

    Shashank Sitaram

    Short stories · 122 pages

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2003 · Winner

    கள்ளிக்காட்டு இதிகாசம்

    Kallikattu Ithikasam

    Title translated by AI:“The Epic of Cactus Land”

    Vairamuthu · 48 when first published

    Novel · 376 pages · Family, Nature

    AI-generated summary:In Kallikattu, a parched village in the Theni region of Tamil Nadu, the farmer Peyathevar fights to wring a living from dry land, while a dam being built nearby threatens to drown his village and its neighbours.

2002 7 books

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2002 · Winner

    A New World

    A New World

    Amit Chaudhuri · 38 when first published

    Novel · 208 pages · Family

    AI-generated summary:A year after his divorce, an Indian economist who teaches in the American Midwest brings his young son to Calcutta to spend the summer with his ageing parents.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2002 · Winner

    That Thou Art

    તત્ત્વમસિ · Tattvamasi

    Dhruv Bhatt · 51 when first published

    Novel · 231 pages · Nature

    AI-generated summary:A young Indian student brought up overseas reluctantly goes to stay with tribal people in the woods on the banks of the Narmada, on an assignment from his professor to report on his work there.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2002 · Winner

    دھواں

    Dhuan

    Title translated by AI:“Smoke”

    Gulzar

    Short stories · 200 pages

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2002 · Winner

    Ten Days of the Strike

    আমি ও বনবিহারী · Ami O Banabehari

    Sandipan Chattopadhyay · 67 when first published

    Novel · 80 pages · Politics

    AI-generated summary:A narrator who asks to be called Pran lives as the hidden inner self of Banabihari, a communist, watching him and a woman named Pratibha through thirty years of left-wing politics.

2001 9 books

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2001 · Winner

    Kalikatha: Via Bypass

    कलि-कथा : वाया बाइपास · Kali-Katha: Via Bypass

    Alka Saraogi · 38 when first published

    Novel · 295 pages · Family, Historical

    AI-generated summary:After heart bypass surgery, Kishore Babu, a well-off Marwari in Calcutta, starts roaming the city on foot, and his walks draw him back into his own youth and his family's past.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2001 · Winner

    આગંતુક

    Agantuk

    Title translated by AI:“The Visitor”

    Dhiruben Patel · 70 when first published

    Novel · 199 pages

    AI-generated summary:A man who has lived as a sadhu, striving for a higher spiritual life, returns to his family home in Bombay, where his sincerity and purity leave him out of step with modern society.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2001 · Winner

    Collected Stories

    طاؤس چمن کی مینا · Taoos Chaman Ki Maina

    Naiyer Masud · 62 when first published

    Short stories · 662 pages

    AI-generated summary:Stories steeped in Lucknow and the traces of its vanished past; in the best known, set in the mid-nineteenth century, a jobless widower takes work in the Nawab's garden tending its talking mynas.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2001 · Winner

    तणकट

    Tanakat

    Title translated by AI:“Weeds”

    Rajan Gavas · 39 when first published

    Novel · 239 pages

2000 6 books

  • Written in English

    Sahitya Akademi 2000 · Winner

    Cuckold

    Cuckold

    Kiran Nagarkar · 55 when first published

    Novel · 609 pages · Historical, War, Politics

    AI-generated summary:In early sixteenth-century Mewar, the Rajput crown prince marries a girl who insists she is already the bride of Krishna, while enemy sultans and a resentful younger brother threaten the kingdom.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2000 · Winner

    ଉଲ୍ଲଙ୍ଘନ

    Ullanghan

    Title translated by AI:“Transgression”

    Pratibha Ray · 55 when first published

    Short stories · 311 pages

    AI-generated summary:Stories about people who overstep moral and social limits, told with sympathy for human weakness; the title story turns on desire, spoken or held back, and what follows from it.

  • No English yet

    Sahitya Akademi 2000 · Winner

    ધૂંધભરી ખીણ

    Dhundhabhari Khin

    Title translated by AI:“The Misty Valley”

    Vinesh Antani · 50 when first published

    Novel · 250 pages · Politics

    AI-generated summary:Ordinary people in Punjab try to carry on with their lives while political unrest grips the region.

  • In English

    Sahitya Akademi 2000 · Winner

    The Fourth Direction and Other Stories

    ਚੌਥੀ ਕੂਟ · Chauthi Koot

    Waryam Singh Sandhu · 53 when first published

    Short stories · 156 pages · Politics

    AI-generated summary:Stories of village Punjab in the 1980s, where families are squeezed between Sikh separatist fighters and the security forces; in one, armed men order a household to keep its dog from barking.