‘Raymond Crossword Book Award 2014’ winners announced 13 years of rewarding the best in Indian writing

‘Raymond Crossword Book Award 2014’ winners announced

13 years of rewarding the best in Indian writing

• “The Blind Lady’s Descendants by Anees Salim” won the Raymond Crossword Book Award in the Indian Fiction category  The other short listed books were
• The competent Authority by Shovon Chawdhary - Aleph pyblishers
• The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baske- Hansda Sowvenbdra Shekar- Aleph
• The Smoke is Rising by Mahesh Rao- Random House
• The Place by Amitabha Bagchi- Harper Collins
• Odyesseus Abroad by Amit Chaudhary-Penguin Books

• “This Divided Island: Stories from the Sri Lankan War by Samanth Subramanian” won the award for Indian Non-Fiction. The other short listed books in this category were
• Capital- by Rana Dasgupta- Harper Collins
• A Southern Music by T.M.Krishna -Harper Collins
• Filomena's Journeys' by maria Aurora Couto- Aleph
• Colours of The Cage- A Prison Memoir by Arun Ferreira- Aleph
• Public Secrets of Law: rape trials in India by Pratiksha Baxi- Oxford University Press.

• “Children, Women, Men By Sundara Ramaswamy Translated by Lakshmi Holmstrom” won the Indian language Translation category. The other books  shortlisted in this category were-
• Cobalt Blue by Sachin Kundalkar- translated by Jerry Pinto- Penguin Books
• One Part Woman by Perumal Murugan 0translated by Aniruddha Vasudevan- penguin Books
• The Mirror of beauty by Shamsur rahman Faruqi- translated by penguin Books
• A dirge for the Damned by Vishwas Patil translated by Keerti Ramachandra- Hachette India
• The death of Sheherzad by Intezaar Hussain translated by Rakshanda Jallil- Harper Collins
• 
  

 

• “Bankerupt by Ravi Subramanian” won the Popular Award The other nominess in this category were...
• The Accidental Prime Minister by Sanjaya baru- penguin
• Sita by Devdutt Pattanaik- Penguin 
• The Mahabharata Secret by Christopher Doyle- Om Books
• Byculla o Bankok by S Husain Zaidi- Harper Collins
• My journey transforming Dreams into Action by APJ Abdul Kalam Azad-Rupa Publications
• Dilip Kumar- the Substance by Dilip Kumar - Hay House Publishers
• Like It Happened Yesterday- by Ravindra Singh- Penguin
•  Ajaya by Anand Neelkantan- Leadstart
• Private India by Ashwin Sanghi- Random House
• House of cards by Sudha Murthy- Penguin books
• Gandhi Before India by Ramchandra Guha- Penguin Books
• Chanakya's Seven Secrets of Leadership-Radhakrishnan pillai and D.Sivanandan -Jaico
• When only Love remains-Durjoy Dutta- Penguin Books
• 
  

 

• “Timmi in Tangles by Shals Mahajan Duckbill” won Kotak Junior Children writing award

 Other books shortlisted in this category werre

Vanamala and the Cephalopod- Shalini Srinivasan -Duckbill

The Susu Pals by Richa Jha SWPB

The adventures of Skoob by Samit basu-Rupa publications

The Flat track bullies by Balaji venkatramanan- Duckbill

April 28th 2015, Mumbai: The finest of Indian Literature took center stage at “RAYMOND CROSSWORD BOOK AWARDS 2014’ as the country’s finest writers and their books were honoured at a glittering award function at NCPA in Mumbai. The awards this year are in association with Principal Retirement Advisors, Club Mahindra, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Runwal Group.

Eminent jurist and a former mayor and Sheriff of Mumbai Nana Chudasama and Indian fashion designer, politician, and a social worker Shaina NC were the Chief Guest for the evening which also included a memorable performance by The Raghu Dixit Project.

With over 50,000 voting entries for the popular award, it is the highest number of votes ever received in the history of the Book Award. The entire judging process has taken more than 3 rigorous months which includes shortlisting the books to announcing the final winner.

 

Mr Govind Shrikhande MD Shoppers Stop 

Mr Kinjal Shah CEO Crossword Bookstore

Speaking on the occasion Mr Kinjal Shah (CEO – Crossword Bookstores) said, “This year we complete 13 years of the Book Award. These awards have always been an integral part of the brand & we are thrilled at the way it has grown over the years & supported Indian writing. We at crossword would like to thank the readers, authors, publishers, the jury, and all our sponsors for their support in the endeavour of rewarding the best of Indian Literature”

Commenting on this occasion Madhu Dutta, Marketing Head - Lifestyle Business, Raymond Limited said, "An avid reader breathes life into a story; a story that springs to life and performs in front of you. It’s an intellectual mind that goes beyond the ordinary.  One to have that finer taste in life, a well-read and travelled gentleman resonates with everything that makes the complete man. We at Raymond couldn’t be happier to associate with Crossword Book Award to celebrate the seamless synergy between a reader and the sartorialist.”

The 13^th edition saw an outstanding response, from the various distinguished writers, publishers, critics and book-lovers who enjoyed the biggest celebration of Indian literature. Shortlisted authors Ravinder Singh, Durjoy Dutta, Ashwin Sanghi, S Hussain Zaidi, Rashmi Bansal, Anand Neelkhantan, Ravi Subramanian, Jerry Pinto, Amitabh Bagchi were present at event.

 The highlight of the evening though was charismatic performer Raghu Dixit's energised vocal kalisthenics blasting out four of his youtube International hits. He was clad in his traditional Mysore get-up which consisted of a kanjeevaram Dhoti and a colored sarda with a guitar strung across one shoulder and weighty brass anklets rimming strings of payals on his ankles. Accompanying him on the violin was Bhaskar Mysore, his one time collaborator who was accompanying him for the first time in 20 years. Belting out Hey Bhagwan, No Man will ever love you like I do, A Kannadiga song that had the audience singing along and Mysore se aayee. Raghu's impressive presence, fantastic vocals and guitar play combined with Mysore Bhaskar's virtuoso violin jugalbandi was music to the laid back stuffed-shirt audience who let their hair down by engaging with the singer both in voice and accompaniments. It was a never seen before sight at the haloed NCPA Tata Theatre where the audience is generally quite subdued in their appreciation to the international music talents that come their way. Cries of onemore were heard loud and clear and the audience saw it fit to give raghu a standing ovation to serenade his unique display of talent.  

About the Awards

Crossword Book Award is the only Indian award that recognizes and rewards good writing and also actively promotes Indian authors and their books. When the book awards were launched in 1998, there was one cash prize of Rs. 2 lakhs for the best original work of fiction in English by an Indian author, and it 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 3 lakhs in each category. In 2005, two more award categories were added English Non-Fiction, as well as the Popular Award. In 2009 award for Indian Children’s writing was introduced thus making it the only Indian literary award that rewards authors across 5 different categories. Each award carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, a trophy and a citation.

About Crossword:

Crossword Bookstores Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary Company of Shopper's Stop Ltd - India's leading department store chain with 97 stores, across 33cities in India and as on today is India's fastest growing chain of bookstores. At Crossword we aim to be a point of cultural and social interaction where authors and poets hold court, where children are regaled, where people gravitate to be informed, to be entertained, even enlightened. Crossword vision is to build community centers for readers across the Country. Crossword launched the Crossword Book Award in 1998 to recognize and reward the best of Indian writing across Fiction, Non Fiction, Children's, Translation & Popular. Since its inception in 15th October 1992, It has been featured in Advertising Age International, USA, as one of the Marketing Superstars for 1994. The Bookseller, UK, has also described it as 'being on the cutting edge of retailing' in India. Crossword was ranked the 6th most admired retailer in India by Business world for the year 2006. It also won the Star Retailer Award for the Best Lifestyle Retailer in Books & Music in 2011. Crossword won the Retailer of the Year Award - Leisure (Books, Music and Gifts Category) at the Images Retail Awards 2005 & 2007& 2009. Crossword received the Federation of Indian Publishers Award for excellence in Publishing for the year 2004 on 18th June 2005 at the hands of Shri Arjun Singh, Minister of Human Resource Development. It won the Debutant E-retailer of the year - books - at India eRetail Awards 2012. In 2013 Crossword also won The ET Retail Award for Marketing for ‘Crossword Popular Award’. It won the Best Book retailer award in 2014 at the Indian Retail Awards

About Raymond Limited

Raymond offers end-to-end solutions for fabrics and garmenting. It has some of the leading brands in its portfolio including Raymond Ready-to-Wear, Park Avenue, Parx, ColorPlus, Makers amongst others. Raymond has one of the largest exclusive retail networks in the textile and fashion space in India.

As a part of the diversified Group, we also have business interests in men’s accessories, personal grooming & toiletries, prophylactics, energy drinks, files and tools and auto components.

Visit us today at www.raymondnext.com to witness how we cater to the needs of 'The Complete Man'