After a hiatus of two years, Kalinga Literature Festival (KLF) is all set to be hosted in Bhubaneshwar on December 10, 2021. The three-day event will witness a number of debutant and seasoned authors being felicitated for their work. KLF has already announced a list of 47 authors, who will be awarded during the literary meet.

“After a break of two years, ours will be the first literary festival to be held in physical format during the pandemic, which had earlier forced us to shelve the event,” Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Founder & Director of KLF.

On being asked, what new to expect from the festival, he said, “For the first time we have decided to introduce the KLF Book Awards, during which we will be felicitating around 47 authors for the year 2020-2021.”

Prominent titles that have been selected for the award include Amitav Ghosh’s Jungle Nama, Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar's The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World, Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s Restless as Mercury: My Life as a Young Man Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Gulzar’s A Poem a Day, Sandeep Bamzai’s Princestan: How Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten Made India, Shashi Tharoor & Samir Saran’s The New World Disorder, Bollywood actor debut book Sonu Sood & Meena Iyer’s I am no Messiah; journalists Rasheed Kidwai’s Bharat ke Pradhan Mantri and Shirish Khare’s Ek Desh Barah Duniya.

Calcutta’ Manoranjan Byapari will be getting the KLF Bhasha Award for his book The Runaway Boy.

Parida said that they would be following all the safety protocols mandated by the state government. “We will be organizing the event in hybrid mode – people can catch us live on our social media pages. Also, we have three banquet halls, each of a capacity of 1200 invitees but we have capped it to 400 invitees for each hall, where the sessions will be conducted," he said.

Parida added, that the event would be open to all, but only those who register would be allowed to enter the venue.

Given that India has entered the 75^th year of its independence, the organisers have opted for ‘India at 75: Republic of Letters’ as the central theme of literary meet.

The event, which was held virtually last year, had hosted 277 live sessions during the pandemic. Over 600 authors took part and 60 lakh viewers saw their sessions on various social media platforms.

List of awardees for the KLF Book Awards 2020-21

KLF Fiction Book of the Year Award 2020-21 (5):

I. Jahnavi Baruah’s “Undertow”, Penguin Random House India (2020)

II. Namita Gokhale and Malashri Lal’s “Betrayed by Hope: A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt”, HarperCollins India (2020)

III. Tarana Husain Khan’s “The Begum and the Dastan”, Tranquebar, Westland (2021)

IV. Ashwani Sanghi’s “The Vault of Vishnu”, Westland (2020)

V. Ashok Kaul’s “Undercover in Bandipore”, Vitasta Publishing Pvt Ltd (2020)

KLF Non-fiction Book of the Year Award 2020-21 (7):

I. Sandeep Bamzai’s “Princestan: How Nehru, Patel and Mountbatten Made India”, Rupa Publications (2020)

II. Shashi Tharoor & Samir Saran’s “The New World Disorder”, Aleph Book Company (2020)

III. Vinay Sitapati’s “Jugalbandi: The BJP Before Modi”, Penguin Viking-Penguin Random House India (2020)

IV. Pavan K Varma’s “The Great Hindu Civilisation: Achievement, Neglect, Bias and the Way Forward”, Westland (2021)

V. T M Krishna’s “A Brief History of Mrdangam Makers”, Context, Westland (2020)

VI. Ashutosh Bhardwaj’s “The Death Script”, HarperCollins India (2020)

VII. Prem Prakash’s “Reporting India”, Ebury Press, Penguin Random House India (2020)

KLF Poetry Book of the Year Award 2020-21 (5):

I. Gulzar’s “A Poem a Day”, HarperCollins India (2020)

II. Abhay K’s “Kalidasa: Meghduta-The Cloud Messenger” & “Kalidasa: Ritusamhara-The Six Seasons” (Jointly), Bloomsbury (2021)

III. Greta Rana’s “From Castleford to Kathmandu”, Vajra Books (2021)

IV. Basant Chaudhary’s “Anek Pal aaur Mai”, Vani Prakashan (2021)

KLF Hindi Book of the Year Award 2020-21 (5):

I. Neelakshi Singh’s “Khela”, Setu Prakashan (2021)

II. Alka Saraogi’s “Kulbhooshan Ka Naam Darj Kijiye”, Vani Prakashan (2020)

III. Mamta Kalia’s “Ravi Katha: Andaaz-E-Bayan Urf Ravi Katha”, Vani Prakashan (2020)

IV. Praveen Kumar Jha’s “Wah Ustad”, Rajpal & Sons (2020)

V. Shirish Khare’s “Ek Desh Barah Duniya”, Rajpal & Sons (2021)

KLF Book in Translation of the Year Award 2020-21 (1):

I. Perumal Murugan’s “Estuary”-Translated by Nandini Krishnan, Eka, Westland (2020)

KLF Bhasa Award 2020-21 (1):

I. Manoranjan Byapari’s “The Runaway Boy”, Eka, Westland (2020)

KLF Debut Book Award 2020-21 (1):

I. Sonu Sood & Meena Iyer’s “I am no Messiah”, Penguin eBury Press (2020)

KLF Business Book of the Year Award 2020-21 (3):

I. R C Bhargava’s “Getting Competitive: A Practitioner’s Guide for India”, HarperCollins India (2020)

II. Urjit Patel’s “Overdraft”, HarperCollins India (2020)

III. Tamal Bandyopadhyay’s “Pandemonium: The Great Indian Banking Tragedy”, Roli Books (2020)

KLF Diplomacy/Strategic Affairs Book of the Year Award 2020-21 (3):

I. S Jaishankar’s “The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World”, HarperCollins India (2020)

II. Zorawar Daulet Singh’s “Powershift: India-China Relations in a Multipolar World”, Pan Macmillan (2020)

III. Subramanian Swamy’s “Himalayan Challenge: India, China and the Quest for Peace”, Rupa Publications (2020)

KLF Environmental Book of the Year Award 2020-21 (2):

I. Shekhar Pathak’s “Hari Bhari Ummid”, Vani Prakashan (2020)/ The Chipko Movement: A People’s History, Permanent Black (2020)

II. Amitav Ghosh’s “Jungle Nama”, Fourth Estate India-HarperCollins India, (2021)

KLF Women/Dalit/Tribal/Minorities Literature Award 2020-21 (5):

I. Gopinath Mohanty’s “Harijan: A Novel”-Translated by Bikram Das, Aleph Book Company (2021)

II. Sudarshan Ramabadran and Guru Prakash Paswan’s “Makers of Modern Dalit History”, Penguin Random House India (2021)

III. A Plate of White Marble (Shwet Patharer Thala) by Bani Basu (Translated by Nandini Guha), Niyogi Books (2020)

IV. Pradeep Srivastav’s “Ramvilas Paswan: Sankalp, Sahas aaur Sangharsh”, Penguin Random House India (2020)

V. Shafey Kidwai’s “Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Reason, Religion and Nation”, Routledge (2021)

KLF Biography/Autobiography Book of the Year Award 2020-21 (5):

I. Tenzin Geyche Tethong’s “His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama: An Illustrated Biography”, Roli Books (2020)

II. Gopalkrishna Gandhi’s “Restless as Mercury: My Life as a Young Man Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi”, Aleph Book Company (2021)

III. Yatindra Mishra’s “Akhtari: The Life and Music of Begum Akhtar”, HarperCollins India (2021)

IV. Rasheed Kidwai’s “Bharat Ke Pradhan Mantri”, Rajkamal Prakashan (2021)

V. John Zubrzycki’s The House of Jaipur: The Inside Story of India’s Most Glamorous Royal Family, Juggernaut (2020)

KLF Children Book of the Year Award 2020-21 (2):

I. Ruskin Bond’s “Miracle at Happy Bazaar: My Best Stories for Children”, Aleph Book Company (2020)

II. Sudha Murthy’s “Grandparents’ Bag of Stories”, Puffin, Penguin Random House India (2020)

KLF Sports Book of the Year Award 2020-21 (1):

I. Ramachandra Guha’s “The Commonwealth of Cricket”, HarperCollins India (2020)

KLF Lifestyle & Emerging Trend Book Award 2020-21(1):

I. Rujuta Diwekar’s “Eating in the Age of Dieting”, Westland (2020)