HarperCollins named Tata Literature Live! Publisher of the Year

The Tata Literature Live! Book of the Year Award (Fiction) was given to Irwin Allan Sealy for Asoca: A Sutra (Penguin Random House). The Book of the Year Award (Non-Fiction) was given to Ghazala Wahab’s Born a Muslim: Some Truths About Islam in India (Aleph).

Tamal Bandyopadhyay’s Pandemonium: The Great Indian Banking Tragedy (Roli Books) was adjudged the Business Book of the Year.  

A Death in Shonagachhi (Pan Macmillan) by Rijula Das won First Book Award (Fiction) and the First Book Award (Non-Fiction) went to Landscapes of Loss: The Story of an Indian Drought (HarperCollins) by Kavitha Iyer.

HarperCollins was named Tata Literature Live! Publisher of the Year Award.

The four-day festival, presented online for the second consecutive year, was a huge success, with the number of views across platforms crossing 3 million at the last count.

The annual Tata Literature Live! Lifetime Achievement Award for 2021 was given to celebrated author Anita Desai, and the Festival’s Poet Laureate for 2021 was legendary poet Adil Jussawalla.

At this year’s festival, 145 participants covering 17 countries and nine languages, took part in 57 sessions (ranging from literature to social sciences, economics, history, health, and environment) and five workshops (on the subjects of art, writing and conceptual poetry). In addition, there were 7 riveting performances on themes from food to Dante, to a disappearing poet, to First Nation languages.

The international stellar line up at the festival included Amitav Ghosh, Salman Rushdie, Anita Desai, Adil Jussawalla, Anne Enright, Steven Pinker, Nick Hornby, Shashi Tharoor, Indra Nooyi, David Baldacci, Ashis Nandy, Nguyen Phan Que Mai, Vidya Dehejia, Martin Kemp, Rebecca Solnit, Ruskin Bond, Amish, Neena Gupta, Ashwin Sanghi, Matthew Weiner, Marlon James, Rutger Bregman, Matt Haig, Heather Morris, Dolly Thakore, Jonathan Drori, Farah Bashir, Sanjena Sathian.