The Bangalore Literature Festival and Atta Galatta, the city-based bookstore and art-literature space, instituted the Atta Galatta – Bangalore Literature Festival | Book Prize in 2015 to honour the best of English writing, each year. The awards carry a total purse of INR 2 lacs for the three categories: Best Fiction, Best Non-Fiction and Literary Achievement Award in Kannada
The winners also receive an original trophy, Thought Beyond Words.
Fiction (English)
Shortlist
Non-Fiction (English)
Shortlist
Literary Achievement Award in Kannada
For this award, our jury selects an author who has made a significant contribution to Kannada language and literature in form, function and flavour.
The Atta Galatta-Bangalore Literature Festival | Book Prize - Trophy
The winners receive an original sculpture titled “Thought Beyond Words” that showcases how creative insights precede their translation into language.
The sculpture depicts the mind as a tree and thoughts as birds. Birds come and go to the branches of the tree. Some fleetingly, some with more persistence. Some birds will take up residence in the tree, build a nest in its branches, giving birth to more thoughts.
Jury
A subterranean widespread jury headed by Jahnavi Barua and Manish Sabharwal.
Jahnavi Barua
Bio
Jahnavi Barua is an Indian writer based in Bangalore. Next Door (Penguin India, 2008), her debut collection of short stories was longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. Her next, a novel called Rebirth (Penguin India, 2010), was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. The third, Undertow, a novel, was published by Penguin Random House India (Viking Books) in February 2020. Her short fiction has been widely anthologized and her work is part of several university syllabi. Jahnavi studied medicine at university but is not a practicing doctor. She was born in Guwahati and raised between Assam, Meghalaya, Delhi and Manchester.
Manish Sabharwal
Bio
Manish is Chairman and co-founder of Teamlease Services, India’s largest staffing and human capital firm. He is a trustee of the New India Foundation that offers fellowships for writing books about post-1947 India, and is a columnist for Indian Express. He is an alumnus of Shriram College, Delhi, Mayo College, Ajmer and The Wharton School.