The Kalinga Literary Festival has announced its 2026 Book Awards longlist in five categories – Nonfiction, Fiction, Translated Fiction, Debut, and Poetry.

The shortlist will be announced in the second week of April and the awards ceremony will be held on May 8 in Delhi. The winning authors will receive a cash award of Rs 1 lakh.

Here is the complete longlist:

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




• The World After Gaza, Pankaj Mishra, Juggernaut Books




• Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age, Vauhini Vara HarperCollins India




• Indira Gandhi and the Years that Transformed India, Srinath Raghavan, Penguin Random House India




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




• Mother Mary Comes to Me, Arundhati Roy, Penguin Random House India




• Called by the Hills, Anuradha Roy, Hachette India

• Great Eastern Hotel, Ruchir Joshi, HarperCollins India




• The Elsewhereans, Jeet Thayil, HarperCollins India




• Railsong, Rahul Bhattacharya, Bloomsbury Publishing




• Rising Sons, Kavery Nambisan, Penguin Random House India




• The Beast Within, Rudraneil Sengupta, Westland Books




• The Last Free Naga, Jim Wungramyao Kasom, Speaking Tiger Books




• Absolute Jafar, Sarnath Banerjee, HarperCollins India




• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, Kiran Desai, Penguin Random House India

• Tiger Lessons, Sannapureddy Venkatarami Reddy, translated from the Telugu by Narasimha Kumar, Bloomsbury Publishing




• The Dark Hours of the Night, Salma, translated from the Thamizh by GJV Prasad, Simon & Schuster India




• Mudritha,Jissa Jose, translated from the Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil, HarperCollins India




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

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