Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman 2026 announces shortlists in fiction, nonfiction, debut categories

The 2026 edition of the Ramnath Goenka Sahithya Samman will be awarded in four categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Debut (including both fiction and nonfiction titles), and Lifetime Achievement. The shortlist was announced on Thursday.

The winners, including the Lifetime Achievement award, will be announced later in the day and the winners will be felicitated on December 2.

This year’s jury comprises Santwana Bhattacharya, Editor, The New Indian Express Group; K Vaidyanathan, Editor, Dinamani; and Ravi Shankar, Consulting Editor, Sunday Magazine.

Here are the shortlisted books in each category:

Fiction

• Ghost Eye, Amitav Ghosh

• Once Elephants Lived Here, Geetanjali Shree, translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell

• Railsong, Rahul Bhattacharya

• The Ayodhya Alliance, Ashwin Sanghi

Best Nonfiction

• God’s Own Empire: The Extraordinary Life of Marthanda Varma of Travancore, Raghu Palat and Pushpa Palat

• The Hindi Heartland: A Study, Ghazala Wahab

• Believer’s Dilemma: Vajpayee and the Hindu Right’s Path to Power, 1977–2018, Abhishek Choudhary

• Who Owns the Past?: How Historians [Re]Wrote India’s Past and Present, 1870-2020, Shaan Kashyap

Best Debut

• Allah Miyan’s Workshop, Mohsin Khan, translated from the Urdu by Maaz Bin Bilal

• Never Logged Out: How the Internet Created India’s Gen Z, Ria Chopra

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

• The Remnants of Rebellion, Ponnu Elizabeth Mathew

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