The Economist Crossword Award's longlist announced

New Delhi: The Economist and Crossword in association with Principal Retirement Advisors & Standard Chartered Bank released the list of entries for the 'The Economist Crossword Book Award 2011' across all the four categories of Indian Fiction, Non-Fiction, Translation and Children's writing. Each award carries a cash prize of Rs 3 lakhs, a trophy and a citation.

The publishers have nominated eligible authors for awards which will be sent to a panel of judges consisting of literary critics and noted authors. The judges evaluate these entries and a shortlist of 5 books in each category will be drawn during the shortlisting ceremony, scheduled in early September in New Delhi. The final awards ceremony will be held in October, 2012 in Mumbai. The long list this year includes 329 entries received from publishers and authors.

Judges in the past have included authors like Kiran Nagarkar, Vikram Chandra, Dilip Chitre, Paul Zacharia, Mukul Kesavan, Anita Roy, Shoma Chaudhury, Rama Bijapurkar, Meenakshi Mukherjee, Urvashi Butalia, Sukanta Chaudhuri, Geeta Doctor, Harsh Sethi, Mukund Padmanabhan, Dilip Kumar, Nilanjana S Roy, Kai Friese and Malashri Lal.

The Crossword Book Award recognises and rewards good writing and promotes authors and their books.

No of entries in:

Fiction: 137

Non Fiction: 105

Children's: 59

Translation: 28

The Crossword Book Award recognises and rewards good writing and also actively promotes the authors and their books. Last year the award received a record number of 300 valid entries in the above mentioned categories, thus making the awards representative of the best of contemporary Indian literature.

The awards were launched in 1998. The cash prize of Rs 2 lakhs for the best original work of fiction in English by an Indian author was won by Allan Sealy for The Everest Hotel. In 1999, a new category was added: Indian Language Fiction Translation into English and the cash prize was increased to Rs 3 lakhs in each category. In 2005, two more award categories were added - English Non-Fiction as well as a Popular Award for which readers voted for their favourite books shortlisted for the Fiction and Non-Fiction categories. In 2009, an award for Indian Children's writing was introduced.

Past Winners

Crossword Fiction Award

2010: Omair Ahmad for 'Jimmy the Terrorist"

2009: Kalpana Swaminathan for 'Venus Crossing'

2008: Amitav Ghosh for 'Sea of Poppies' & Neel Mukherjee for 'Past Continuous'

2007: Usha K. R. for 'A Girl and a River'

2006: Vikram Chandra for 'Sacred Games'

2005: Salman Rushdie for 'Shalimar the Clown'

2004: Amitav Ghosh for 'The Hungry Tide'

2000: Jamyang Norbu for 'The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes'

1999: Vikram Seth for 'An Equal Music'

1998: I Allan Sealy for 'The Everest Hotel'

Crossword Translation Award

2010: N. S. Madhavan, Rajesh Rajmohan for 'Litanies of Dutch Battery'

2009: Sara Joseph for 'Othappu'

2008: Manohar Shyam Joshi / Ira Pande for 'T'Ta Professor'

2007: Sankar / Arunava Sinha for 'Chowringhee' and Anand Sachidanandan / Gita Krishnankutty for 'Govardhan's Travels'

2006: C.S. Lakshmi (Ambai) / Lakshmi Holmstrom for 'In a Forest, A Deer'

and M. Mukundan / A.J. Thomas for 'Kesavan's Lamentations'

2005: Krishna Sobti, Reema Anand & Meenakshi Swami for 'The Heart has its Reasons'

2004: Chandrasekhar Rath, Jatindra Nayak for 'Astride the Wheel (Yantrarudha)'

2000: Bama, Lakshmi Holmstrom for 'Karukku'

1999: M. Mukundan, Gita Krishnankutty for 'On The Banks of The Mayyazhi'

Crossword Non-Fiction Award

2010: Sunanda K. Datta-Ray for 'Looking East To Look West'

2009: Rajni Bakshi for 'Bazaars, Conversations & Freedom'

2008: Basharat Peer for 'Curfewed Night'

2007: William Dalrymple for 'The Last Mughal'

2006: Vikram Seth for 'Two Lives'

2005: Suketu Mehta for 'Maximum City: Bombay Lost & Found'

Crossword Popular Award

2010: Ashwin Sanghi for 'Chanakya's Chant'

2009: Rajni Bakshi for 'Bazaars, Conversations & Freedom'

2008: Pallavi Aiyar for 'Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China'

2007: Namita Devidayal for 'The Music Room'

2006: Kiran Desai for 'The Inheritance of Loss'

2005: Rahul Bhattacharya for 'Pundits from Pakistan: On tour with India 2003-04'

Crossword Children's Award

2010: Ranjit Lal for 'Faces in the Water'

2009: Siddhartha Sarma for 'The Grasshopper's Run'

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