Tata Lit Fest honours MT Vasudevan Nair, poet Joy Goswami

Renowned Malayalam writer MT Vasudevan Nair was today honoured with the Life-time Achievement Award at the fifth 'Tata Literature Live!, the largest literary festival of the megapolis.
The festival also bestowed the first Poet Laureate of India Award to renowned Bengali poet Joy Goswami, which marked the launch of the 'silver edition' of 'The Great Indian Novel' by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor here earlier today, the final day of the festival.
Tharoor had launched the satirical novel that is a cheeky take on the modern day political situation in the 20th century India, way back in 1989.
The 81-year-old Nair, popularly known as "MT", is one of the most renowned authors, screenplay writers and film directors in Malayalam today. In 1995, he was honoured with the highest literary award the Jnanpith Award for his overall contribution to the Malayalam literature.

He has a number of award winning books and movies, including national awards and is considered as one of the masters of post-Independence literature. MT has directed seven films, written screenplays for around 54 movies and won the National Film Awards for best screenplay four times in 1989, 1991, 1992, and in 1994.
Both the awards were given away by Anil Dharkar, the founder and Lit festival director, along with the Tata Group brand custodian Mukund Rajan.

The award nite also saw the Book Of The Year Award in the fiction category going to 'Artic Summer' by South African novelist Damon Galgut, and 'Capital', by Rana Dasgupta winning the same award in the non-fiction category.

While the first book award in the fiction category went to debut novelist Mahesh Rao for 'The Smoke is Rising', the same award for the non-fiction category went to 'A Southern Music: The Karnatik Story' by T M Krishna.
The award for the best business book of the year was grabbed by Rajiv Narang and Devika Devaiah for their book 'Orbit Shifting: The Dynamics of Ideas that Create History'.