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Sarnath Banerjee's "Absolute Jafar", Jeet Thayil's "The Elsewhereans" and Shanta Gokhale's "The Way Home" are among the fiction titles longlisted for the Crossword Book Awards 2026, alongside non-fiction works such as Ramachandra Roy's "Called by the Hills", Abhishek Choudhary's "Believer's Dilemma" and Snigdha Poonam's "Scamlands".
The longlist for the 20th edition of the coveted book awards, which spans five key categories -- fiction, non-fiction, translations, children's books, and business & management -- brings together established authors and emerging voices, reflecting the diversity of contemporary Indian writing.
Other fiction selections include Deepika Arwind's "Good Arguments", Rahul Bhattacharya's "Railsong", Amrita Mahale's "Real Life", Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari's "The Menon Investigation", Ponnu Elizabeth Mathew's "The Remnants of Rebellion", Tarana Husain Khan's "The Courtesan, Her Lover and I" and Sundar Sarukkai's "Water Days".
The non-fiction list features a wide range of subjects, from history and politics to culture, technology and ecology.
It includes Ipsita Chakravarty's "Dapaan", Sowmiya Ashok's "The Dig", Anurag Minus Verma's "The Great Indian Brain Rot", Ghazala Wahab's "The Hindi Heartland", TM Krishna's "We, the People of India: Decoding a Nation's Symbols" and Neha Sinha's "Wild Capital".
The jury for the awards includes author Anuja Chauhan, journalist Jyoti Malhotra, business scholar Rama Bijapurkar, children's author Ranjit Lal and writer Meena Kandasamy, bringing together perspectives from fiction, journalism, business, children's literature and translation. -- ANI
