By OUR STAFF REPORTER
DEHRADUN, 19 Nov: After a stimulating two-month pan-India marathon event in five cities – New Delhi to Baroda, Kolkata to Hyderabad, and now finally the three-day finale in its own home Dehradun – the Valley of Words Literature and Arts Festival comes to a close this weekend. This afternoon, Festival Director Dr Sanjeev Chopra announced the much-awaited winners of the PFC-VoW 2021 Book Awards across all eight categories of English literature and Hindi sahitya. VoW accepted submissions for the 2021 Awards honouring works published in the year 2020. With an esteemed Jury for each of the eight categories, over 500 nominations from publishing houses across the country were received. This year there was also a new category added: Writings / Picture Books for Children (bilingual) which saw a very enthusiastic response. The Longlists for this year became a reading guide for many, and were critically acclaimed across the board. The Shortlists formed the basis of the sessions themselves this year, with the selected authors joining in to various venues for thought-provoking conversations, both, physically and virtually. All sessions are available to view on the VoW YouTube channel. The winners are: English Fiction – Lavanya Lakshiminarayan, Analog/ Virtual: And Other Simulations of Your Future. (Hachette India) English Non-fiction Ishtiaq Ahmed, Jinnah: His Successes, Failures and Role in History. (Penguin Random House) Translation from Indian Language to English – Ranjita Biswas, The Loneliness of Hira Barua. (From Arupa Patangia Kalita’s Assamese) (PanMacmillan) Hindi Fiction – Alka Saraogi, Kulbhushan Ka Naam Darj Kijiye. (Vani Prakashan) Hindi Non-fiction – Rajeev Sharma, Vidrohi Sanyasi. (Prabhat Prakashan) Translation from Indian Language to Hindi – Padmaja Ghorpade, Sanatan. (From Sharankumar Limbale’s Marathi) (Vani Prakashan) Writings for Young Adults- Menaka Raman, Loki Takes Guard. (Speaking Tiger) Writings / Picture Books for Children – Paro Anand, A Quiet Girl. (Penguin Random House) The Valley of Words team has extended warm congratulations to all the winners this year!
Layered process in selecting VoW literary award winners: Sanjeev Chopra
Speaking to Garhwal Post, the curator of the Valley of Words Festival, Sanjeev Chopra informed that the winners were chosen after the books were shortlisted by the jury, and based on their recommendations and then after adding the weightage for sales of the books chosen from the book stores and from the records of the issual of the books at the libraries across several cities of the country. Earlier making the announcement in respect of the winners, Chopra thanked the chief sponsors of the Award, Power Finance Corporation. The Awards have been named as PFC VOW Awards Dr Anjan Ray, Dr Jaywanti Dimri, Dr Sushil Upadhyaya, Dr Chamola Jyoti Dhawan and Ratna Manocha. Today’s interesting sessions included talks on History of IT by Dinesh Sharma, History of Medicine by Prof Deepak Kumar of JNU, History of Glass by Dr Alok Kanungo fro IIT, History of Astronomy by N Vahiya. In the post lunch session, tributes were paid to author Kamla Bhasin who had passed away recently by Festival director Jyoti Dhawan in conversation with Jo Chopra. Paro Anand was in conversation with Rupa Bishnoi on her book A Quiet Child. Rohan Chakraborty was in conversation with Jyoti 2021. Other sponsors of the fifth edition of Valley of Words Literature Festival at Dehradun are ONGC and UCOST, besides HDFC, Nestle, IFFCO, Incredible India, NAFED, Coal India Ltd, Green Panel and Tribes India while Garhwal Post is the media partner. Chopra informed that the jury members included Dr KK Paul, Dhawan in respect of his book Making Friends with Snake. Nancy Raj held conversation with Rupa Bishnoi on her book, It is My Colour’. Jyoti Dhawan was in conversation with Ishani Naidu about her book The Song at the Heart of the River. The literature festival will conclude on Sunday.