Namita Gokhale receives lifetime achievement honour at Banaras Lit Fest Awards
KATHMANDU: Namita Gokhale, celebrated writer, co‑founder of the Jaipur Literature Festival and a noted cultural custodian, was conferred the Bhartendu Harishchandra Lifetime Achievement Award. The announcement came as the Banaras Lit Fest on Wednesday revealed the winners of the 2nd Banaras Lit Fest Book Awards 2026 at an outreach event held at the Hi‑Tech Institute of Engineering & Technology.
The awards, announced at a curtain‑raiser in Delhi NCR, recognise outstanding works of fiction, poetry, non‑fiction and translation in English, Hindi and Indian languages. All category winners receive a cash prize of INR 51,000, a citation and a trophy. The Lifetime Achievement Award carries a cash prize of INR 1,00,000 and will be presented during the forthcoming Banaras Lit Fest, scheduled from January 30 to February 1, 2026, at the Taj, Banaras.
Deepak Madhok, President of the Banaras Lit Fest, said the awards had quickly become "a serious marker of literary distinction", praising the winners for their "courage of thought, depth of scholarship and elegance of expression" and thanking the jury for upholding "the highest standards of judgment".
Brijesh Singh, Founder and Secretary of the Banaras Lit Fest, said the organisers had introduced a Youth Award this year to encourage emerging voices and to ensure the next generation of writers gained recognition and visibility. He added that the diversity of languages and forms represented reflected the continuing vitality of India’s multilingual literary tradition.
The English‑language winners include Shinie Antony, who won the Ruskin Bond Award for Fiction for Eden Abandoned: The Story of Lilith; Abhay K, who won the Sarojini Naidu Award for Poetry for The Hanuman Chalisa; Peggy Mohan, who won the Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Award for Non‑Fiction for Father Tongue, Motherland: The Birth of Language in South Asia; and Arunava Sinha, who won the Rabindranath Tagore Award for Translation for his translation of Sankar’s Limited / Unlimited from Bengali.
In the Hindi categories, Mamta Kalia won the Premchand Award for Fiction for 'Doorastha Daampatya'; Udayan Vajpeyi won the Kabir Award for Poetry for 'Paagal Ganitajna Ki Kavitaaen'; J Sushil won the Rahul Sankrityayan Award for Non‑Fiction for 'Dukh Ki Duniya Bheetar Hai'; and Rajgopal Singh Verma received the Mahadevi Verma Award for Translation for his translation of Thomas Henry Kavanagh’s '1857 Ki Kranti Ka Avadh'.
Special honours announced at the event included the Bhartendu Harishchandra Lifetime Achievement Award for Namita Gokhale, the Kalidas Award for Indian Languages for Mahadev Toppo, and the Vivekanand Award for Youth for Parag Pawan.
Ashutosh Kumar Thakur, Coordinator of the Banaras Lit Fest Book Awards and Literary Curator of the festival, said the second edition marked a threshold moment and that the awards had earned national credibility early on because of the integrity of the process and clarity of vision.
The festival organisers said the Banaras Lit Fest Book Awards aim to strengthen serious literary evaluation in India and to create a space where languages converse and traditions renew themselves.
Alongside the book awards, the Gomati Devi Eminence Awards 2026 were announced to honour long‑term, institutional and socially transformative contributions across fields. Awardees include Prof Dr KK Aggarwal, Ashwin Sanghi and Tisca Chopra in education, literature and arts; Dr. Naveen Khatri in STEM; Nupur Chaturvedi in business and entrepreneurship development; Prof. Dhananjay Singh in public service and social work; Pullela Gopichand, Bhaichung Bhutia and Lalit Upadhyay in sports, yoga and wellness; Kalpana Ajayan in women’s empowerment; and Renu Sood Karnad, who received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Banaras Lit Fest said the twin honours reaffirm the festival’s resolve to place literature and public service at the heart of India’s cultural and civic imagination.
(Compiled)
