Two literary titans will be honoured at the 16th edition of Literature Live! The Mumbai Litfest 2025, from November 7-9, at NCPA, Nariman Point. While acclaimed Hindi novelist and poet Vinod Kumar Shukla will be honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award, eminent Gujarati poet-playwright Sitanshu Yashaschandra will be given the title of Poet Laureate. Presented by Godrej Industries Group, the awards celebrate two voices that have defined the texture of Indian writing. Born in Rajnandgaon, Chattisgarh, in 1937, Shukla’s debut poetry collection, Lagbhag Jai Hind (1971), showed the prowess of a writer who could dignify the mundane and reveal the extraordinary in small-town life. For over five decades, Shukla’s writing has captured the peculiarity of everyday life. Among the six novels, nine poetry collections and numerous short stories, his prominent work includes novels such s Naukar Ki Kameez, which won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1999 and Deewar Mein Ek Khirki Rehati Thi which was adapted into a film by Mani Kaul by the same name. Shukla's magic realism His writing reveals his ease to blend simplicity with magical realism though Shukla resists the label. “Writing is an attempt to speak, to express oneself, to search for one’s own voice. In this search for expression, we take the help of symbols, images and metaphors. If we read well, we also move ahead. Therefore, it is necessary that we recognise our original voice and return to it again and again,” says Shukla, who won the Jnanpith Award in 2025. He is also the only Indian author to have won the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature (in 2023). Shukla, who taught agriculture at Indira Gandhi Agricultural University, Raipur, writes about small towns, invisible citizens and fleeting moments with metaphorical precision. He reflects, “For me, the ultimate truth is that the beginning of writing was with poetry and the end too will be with poetry.” Language has been the tool for bridging the real and the imagined for both the writers. Yashaschandra is known for his expansive language and experimentation. Born in Bhuj, in 1941, he studied Gujarati and Sanskrit at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and completed his MA from Mumbai University, before Fulbright took him to Indiana University. Yashaschandra's surrealism Known for his surreal style of writing, he has worn many hats, that of professor, playwright, translator, academician but it's his poetry that has defined him. His poetry collections – Jatayu won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1987 and Vakhar was awarded the Saraswati Samman in 2017 – stand as classics in Gujarati literature. Yet for him, recognition is not about hierarchy. “What brings joy to me is my understanding that this is not puraskar, it is a 'paaritoshik': not an award declaring any power-related act of 'puras-karan' or 'placement in front of others', but an expression of 'paritosh' or joy felt by some of my contemporary writers. I am glad and grateful that you have shared this feeling publicly with me.” The Mumbai Litfest, in its 15 years, has honoured writers such as Mahasweta Devi, Anita Desai, Ruskin Bond, Girish Karnad, Amitav Ghosh, M T Vasudevan Nair, Khushwant Singh and Sir V S Naipaul, and poets have included Gulzar, Adil Jussawalla, Javed Akhtar, K. Satchidanandan, Jayanta Mahapatra, Keki Daruwalla and Vikram Seth. With Shukla and Yashaschandra, the awards continue that legacy — celebrating two writers whose works remind readers that literature is both deeply personal and profoundly communal, both rooted in language and free to transcend it.
