Valley of Words Book Awards announces its 2026 shortlists across eight categories in Hindi, English

The Valley of Words Book Awards 2026 has announced its shortlists across eight categories. The winners will be announced at the Valley of Words Literature and Arts Festival to be held in Dehradun on November 28 and 29 and will receive a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh and a trophy.

For each category, the final shortlist of five books was narrowed down from a longlist of ten. The shortlisted titles of the VoW Book Awards 2026 are:

English nonfiction

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

• Trial by Water: Indus Basin and India-Pakistan Relations, Uttam Kumar Sinha

• Called by the Hills: A Home in the Himalaya, Anuradha Roy

• The Hindi Heartland: A Study, Ghazala Wahab

• Telling Me My Stories: Fragments of a Himalayan Childhood, Kunzang Choden

English fiction

• Our Friends in Good Houses, Rahul Pandita

• Real Life, Amrita Mahale

• Railsong, Rahul Bhattacharya

• Rising Sons, Kavery Nambisan

• Remnants of Rebellion, Ponnu Elizabeth Mathew

English translation

• Sita’s Veil, Anamika, translated from the Hindi by Nishtha Gautam

• The Bitter Fruit Tree and Other Stories, Prakash Parienkar, translated from the Konkani by Vidya Pai

• My Last Autobiography, Rajendra Banahatti, translated from the Marathi by Jerry Pinto

• The Dark Hours of the Night, Salma, translated from the Thamizh by GJV Prasad

• The Blue Potter: The Creative Genius of Punjab, Ajeet Cour, translated from the Punjabi by Sushmindar Jeet Kaur

Young adult literature

• A Patch of Sun, A Patch of Shade, Vidya Nesarikar

• The White Lotus, Aditi Krishnakumar

• Naach, Navnit Nirav

• Giants, Huthuka Sumi

• Udne Waala Phool, Upasana

Children’s books

• What’s the Point of...

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