For 2022, over 400 nominations were received from 37 publishing houses across the country. The critically acclaimed longlist of 10 books per category was brought down to a final five in the shortlist and then the selection of the final winners was done by an esteemed jury of eight – one member for each of the eight categories. The members were Ishtiaq Ahmed (English Non-Fiction), Surekha Dangwal (English Fiction), Menaka Raman (Writings for Young Adults), Rajeev Sharma (Hindi Non-Fiction), Alka Saraogi (Hindi Fiction), Paro Anand (Writings for Children), Padmaja Ghorpade (Translations to Hindi) and Ranjita Biswas (Translations into English).
Festival Director Sanjeev Chopra said: “The selection of the books involves a three-stage process, and is indeed a tough call as the quality of submissions becomes more competitive each year.”
Here’s the full list of the PFC-VoW Book Award winners for 2022:
English fiction: The Odd Book of Baby Names by Anees Salim (Penguin Random House)
English non-fiction: Tagore & Gandhi: Walking Alone, Walking Together by Rudrangshu Mukherjee (Aleph Book Company)
Hindi fiction: Khela by Neelakshi Singh (Setu Publications)
Hindi non- fiction: Jeete Ji Allahabad by Mamta Kalia (Rajkamal Prakashan)
Writings for young adults: Savi and the Memory Keeper by Bijal Vachharajani (Hachette)
Writings/picture books for children: Aai and I by Mamta Nainy (Pickle Yolk Books)
Translation to Hindi: Yaadon Ke Bikhre Moti: Batware ki Kahaniyan by Aanchal Malhotra, translated by Brig Kamal Nayan Pandit (HarperCollins)
Translation to English: Amader Shantiniketan by Shivani, translated by Ira Pande (Penguin Random House)
 "Tagore and Gandhi, Rudrangshu Mukherjee")