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 and was longlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2020 and the BLF Atta Galatta Book Prize 2020. It won the Best Fiction Prize in the Auther Award 2021 and the Kalinga Literary Festival Award for Fiction, 2021. Her short fiction has been widely anthologized and her work is part of several university syllabi. Jahnavi is a qualified doctor but does not practise medicine. She was born in Guwahati and raised between Assam, Shillong and Delhi.
Manish Sabharwal
Bio
Manish Sabharwal is Chairman of Teamlease and a Friend of BLF. Prior to co-founding the company, he co-founded India Life, a human resource outsourcing company in 1996 that was acquired by Hewitt associates in 2002. Consequently, he was chief executive officer of Hewitt Outsourcing (Asia) based in Singapore. Manish also serves on various state and central government committees on education, employment and employability and is a columnist for Indian Express. He is an alumnus of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Shriram College Delhi and Mayo College, Ajmer. His favourite book is Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
2015 Prize Winners
Fiction (English)
Non-Fiction (English)
Literary Achievement in Kannada
