Valley of Words Festival announces REC-VoW Book Award Winners 2025
By ARUN PRATAP SINGH
Garhwal Post Bureau
Dehradun, 12 Sep: The Valley of Words ~ Shabdavali has announced the winners of the REC-VoW Book Awards 2025, recognising outstanding contributions in English literature, Hindi sahitya, and writings for young adults and children. The award winners were announced at a press conference held today at the Doon Library & Research Centre here by Festival Director Dr Sanjeev Chopra.
Now in its ninth edition, the Valley of Words Festival continues to host the country’s most comprehensive independent literary awards. Chopra also announced that each award winner will receive Rs 1 lakh along with a citation and will be part of a panel discussion. Chopra further shared that the main literature festival of Valley of Words is slated to be held in Dehradun on 25 and 26 October this year.
Briefing the media, Chopra shared that this year the awards attracted over 600 nominations from 75 publishing houses across India. He added that there are 8 categories of awards in literature and, in each category, approximately 70 to 80 books are received for consideration. He shared that the selection process as always, followed a rigorous three-stage evaluation, with the shortlist and winners chosen by last year’s awardees.
Chopra further informed media that the jury for 2025 included Smriti Ravindra, author of The Woman Who Climbed Trees, Manoj Mitta of Caste Pride, Jaiwanti Dimri representing Anjum Katyal for Truth/Untruth, Subhash Neerav of Ambar Pariyaan, Uday Prakash of Antim Nimbu, Suresh Pant of Shabdon ke Saath Saath, Shabnam Minwalla of Zen, and Vibha Batra of The Chhau Champ.
He also shared that last year’s winners are the ones who choose the current year’s winners from a particular category and then the Board of the VoW takes a final call. He added that, in a tradition unique to VoW, the organisers try to ensure that winners confirm their participation in the main literature festival and interact with the audience. This year’s winners in all the 8 categories have also confirmed their participation.
Chopra observed that, as in previous years, the response from publishers had been very encouraging. He expressed gratitude to the jury members for their patient reading and discerning choices. He noted that each of the selected books is ambitious in its scope and explores themes that help the readers better understand themselves and the world around them. He stated, “We eagerly look forward to engaging with the authors in Dehradun and presenting their work to audiences here.”
Prof Dr Sushil Upadhyay, also associated with the festival for past several years now, shared his opinion on the Hindi books selected for the awards. He said that, in all, 3 Hindi books have been chosen in 3 categories, namely Hindi Fiction, Hindi Translation and Hindi Non-Fiction. He said that the books this year are very readable and worth remembering. He said that the Hindi Fiction Suno Kabir is set in a mofussil town and reflects the inner struggles and challenges of living there and it can be read in one go. The Hindi translation titled, Bahattar Meel is originally written by Ashok Vatkar and translated into Hindi by Sulabha Kore and it makes very emotional reading. He also added that the Hindi Non-Fiction winner, Bidae De Ma, written by Sudhir Vidyarthi, concerns the lives and struggles of mothers of freedom fighters and martyrs of the freedom movement.
Chopra shared that Swallowing the Sun, the English Fiction written by Lakshmi Murdeshwar is set in early 20th Century and makes a very interesting read. He added that, this year, there will be three to four sessions on military history and related topics in the coming festival in which four generals living in Dehradun will participate. A special session will also be held on renowned historian from Uttarakhand, Shekhar Pant, and a special Shabad session will also be held to commemorate the 350th martyrdom day of Guru Teg Bahadur.
Jyoti Dhawan, a well-known academician and author of children’s books, shared that this year there will be a special session on Uttarakhand@25 as Uttarakhand is completing its 25th year of existence as a separate state. She also discussed the two books chosen under the categories of Young Adults and children for the award.
The winners of the REC-VoW Book Awards 2025 are: Swallowing the Sun by Lakshmi Murdeshwar Puri (Aleph) in English Fiction; Ananda: An Exploration of Cannabis in India by Karan Madhok (Aleph) in English Non-Fiction; Lavanyadevi by Kusum Khemani, translated from Hindi by Banibrata Mahanta (Orient BlackSwan), in English Translation; Bahattar Meel by Ashok Vatkar, translated from Marathi by Sulabha Kore (Radhakrishna), in Hindi Translation; Suno Kabir by Soni Pandey (Lokbharti) in Hindi Fiction; Bidaai De Ma! by Sudhir Vidyarthi (Rajpal & Sons) in Hindi Non-Fiction; art is a voice by Kripa (ArtsIntegrated) in Young Adult Literature; and Cactus Wants a Hug by Neil Flory (Hachette) in Children’s Literature.
Chopra also extended warm congratulations to all the winners and their publishers. He called upon the literature enthusiasts to join the conversations with the eight awardees at the ninth edition of Valley of Words ~ Shabdavali on 25 and 26 October at Hotel Madhuban, Dehradun.
Among those present at the press conference included Prof Rajendra Dobhal, Vice Chancellor of SRHU, Youavanika Chopra and Tania Saili Bakshi.
