The Kalinga Literary Festival has announced the shortlists for its 2026 Book Awards in five categories – Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translation, and Debut. The winners will be announced in September 2026 and awards will be presented at the inaugural ceremony of KLF Indraprastha between October 3 and 4.

Here are the complete shortlists:

• Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age, Vauhini Vara




• The Cell and the Soul: A Prison Memoir, Anand Teltumbde




• Scamlands: Inside the Asian Empire of Fraud That Preys on the World, Snigdha Poonam




• Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy

• Great Eastern Hotel, Ruchir Joshi




• The Elsewhereans, Jeet Thayil




• The Beast Within, Rudraneil Sengupta




• Absolute Jafar, Sarnath Banerjee

• The City under the City,John Kinsella and Jeet Thayil




• So That You Know,Mani Rao




• My Life Closed Twice, Subhashini Kaligotla




• Folie à Deux,Jennifer Robertson

• Mudritha, Jissa Jose, translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil




• Tiger Lessons, Sannapureddy Venkatarami Reddy, translated from Telugu by Narasimha Kumar;




• Nowhere People,Manoranjan Byapari, translated from Bengali by Anchita Ghatak




• Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi

• The World With Its Mouth Open,Zahid Rafiq




• The Dig: Keeladi and the Politics of India’s Past,Sowmiya Ashok




• Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia, Sam Dalrymple




• The Map Is Not the Territory: Poems, Aranya Padil

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