Mumbai: The Tata Literature Live will honour the grand old man of Indian writing, Kushwant Singh today with a lifetime achievement award.
Announcing the Mumbai LitFest 2013 at the National Centre for Performing Arts, Tata Group brand custodian and chief ethics officer Mukund Rajan here said over 120 writers and thinkers from across the world and the country will be present at the four-day event.
Singh will be honoured with the Landmark Literature Live! Lifetime Achievement Award. Landmark is the book retailing venture of the Tatas.
Rajan also announced the short list for the awardees for the first book award.
The awards will be given for fiction & non-fiction. In the fiction category, the shortlisted authors are Chetan Raj Shrestha, a 34 year old architect from Gangtok, Sikkim, for his book, 'The King's Harvest'.
Others include Shovan Chowdhury, a Delhi-based amateur humorist, for his work 'The Competent Authority'; and Srikumar Sen, ex-journalist from The Times for 'The Skinning Tree'.
The Non-fiction category shortlist include Ananya Vajpeyi, a senior fellow with the American Institute of Indian Studies, for her book, 'Righteous Republic'; Saba Naqvi, political editor of the Outlook magazine for 'In Good Faith'; and Peter Smetacek, an authority on Indian butterflies and moths, for 'Butterflies on the roof of the world'.
Rajan said reputed author Mark Tully, ad man Santosh Desai, journalist Dileep Padgaonkar, Landmark's Ashutosh Pandey and festival director Anil Dharker are the jury.
Writers and thinkers who will grace the event include the likes of Nicholas Hytner, Nik Gowing, Ian Jack, Farrukh Dhondy, Francesca Segal, Amitava Kumar, Charles Correa, Rohit Deshpande, Girish Karnad, Meghnad Desai, Ravi Venkatesan, James Astill, Mark Tully, Peter James, among others.
Also, as part of the centenary of the Nobel Prize to Rabindranath Tagore, the festival will launch Harvard professor Sugata Bose's new translation of the Gitanjali.
