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Namita Gokhale, Mahadev Toppo, Peggy Mohan among winners at Banaras Lit Fest Book Awards 2026

The Banaras Lit Fest announced its 2026 Book Awards, honouring Namita Gokhale and writers across Indian languages for excellence in literature.

2 min readDelhiUpdated: Feb 2, 2026 04:56 PM IST

Banaras Lit Fest Veteran writer Namita Gokhale.

Writer Namita Gokhale is the co-founder of the Jaipur Literature festival.

The Banaras Literature Festival on Wednesday announced the winners of the 2nd Banaras Lit Fest Book Awards 2026, recognising outstanding literary contributions across English, Hindi and Indian languages.

Writer Namita Gokhale, whose debut novel Paro: Dreams of Passion is a cult classic, was conferred the Bhartendu Harishchandra Lifetime Achievement Award for her enduring contribution to Indian literature and literary institution-building.

English language awards

In the English language categories, Shinie Antony won the Ruskin Bond Award for Fiction for Eden Abandoned: The Story of Lilith, while poet Abhay K received the Sarojini Naidu Award for Poetry for The Hanuman Chalisa. Linguist and writer Peggy Mohan was awarded the Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Award for Non-Fiction for Father Tongue, Motherland: The Birth of Language in South Asia. The Rabindranath Tagore Award for Translation went to Arunava Sinha for his English translation of Sankar’s Bengali work Limited / Unlimited.

Also Read | Banaras Lit Fest names longlist for its 2026 book awards

Hindi Literary Awards

Hindi literary awards were led by Mamta Kalia, who received the Premchand Award for Fiction for Doorasth Dampatya. Poet Udayan Vajpeyi was honoured with the Kabir Award for Poetry for Pagal Ganitagya Ki Kavitayein, while J Sushil won the Rahul Sankrityayan Award for Non-Fiction for Dukh Ki Duniya Bheetar Hai. The Mahadevi Verma Award for Translation was awarded to Rajgopal Singh Verma for his translation of Thomas Henry Kavanagh’s work 1857 Ki Kranti Ka Awadh.

Among the special honours, writer Mahadev Toppo received the Kalidas Award for Indian Languages, while Parag Pawan was named the recipient of the Vivekanand Award for Youth.

The awards will be formally presented during the Banaras Lit Fest, scheduled to be held from January 30 to February 1, 2026, in Banaras.