Auther Awards Winners

The Shortlist

The Longlist

About the Awards

JK Paper and The Times of India joined hands in 2018 to bring to you, India’s most coveted Women Auther Awards.

The awards celebrate the contributions of women authors who have, despite all the biases added value and creativity to this space. We wish to acknowledge and award such women authors so that more and more women take up writing and pen that first story and feel proud of their accomplishment.

Let us no longer hide behind pseudonyms and create the respectful space that women authors deserve.

Let’s celebrate the art of story-telling, encourage women authors to express their creativity and fondness for writing, and give them a platform to be recognised.

The last 5 editions have seen more than 5000 entries across 5 awards categories, and immersive multi–city book reading sessions (physical and virtual). With more than 70 eminent personalities being associated over the last four years’ awards journey, JK Paper and The Times of India proudly present Season 6 of AutHer Awards.

Award Categories

Best Fiction

The Auther Award for Best Fiction recognises and celebrates the best and most original writing in the form of the full length novel.

Best Non-Fiction

The Auther Award for Best Non-Fiction recognises original full- length books of narrative non-fiction written by women. It includes writings with a social message, biographies, self-help, true crime, and books of history.

Best Children’s Author

The Auther Award for Best Children’s Author recognises the most outstanding contribution to literature for children and youth.

Best Debut Author

The Auther Award for Best Debut Author recognises the best first full-length novel or first original collection of short stories by an author.

Popular Choice

Popular choice recognizes the most loved story by avid readers. It invites the audience to vote for books by their favourite women author.

Best Manuscript

The Best Manuscript recognizes and encourages young budding female writers to get their work published.

Important Dates

Submissions Open:  20th Oct, 2024
Deadline:  15th December 2024
Evaluation:  Dec/Jan/Feb/Mar
Award’s Night:  21st March 2025

Season 6 Jury Members

Best Fiction

Esther David

Esther David writes about Jewish life in India and personally illustrates her books. She is the author of the highly acclaimed....

Esther David writes about Jewish life in India and personally illustrates her books. She is the author of the highly acclaimed The Walled City, Book of Rachel, Man with Enormous Wings and Ahmedabad: City with a Past, among others. She has also written a collection of short stories, By the Sabarmati, a children’s book, My Father’s Zoo, and co-authored India’s Jewish Heritage: Ritual, Art and Life-cycle. Her books have been translated into several languages, including French, Gujarati and Marathi. Her work is included in the library of modern Jewish literature, Syracuse University Press, New York. Esther received the Sahitya Akademi Award for English Literature in 2010 and the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute Research Award, USA, for documenting the Bene Israel Jews of Gujarat and the study of Indo-Jewish cuisine. The French translation of Book of Rachel received the Prix EugĂ©nie Brazier. Esther belongs to the Bene Israel Jewish community of Ahmedabad.
Sidhhant-dhanvant
Best Fiction

Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s first novel, The Last Song of Dusk, won the Betty Trask Award, the Premio Grinzane.....

Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s first novel, The Last Song of Dusk, won the Betty Trask Award, the Premio Grinzane Cavour, and was nominated for the IMPAC Prize. His second book, The Lost Flamingoes of Bombay, was shortlisted for the Man Asian Prize. His most recent book is Loss. A past contributor to TIME, the New York Times, Vogue and other publications, he lives in north Goa.
Best Fiction

Trisha Das

Trisha Das is the best selling author of Never Meant To Stay (The Grand Samara, in India), a big-hearted romcom set in Delhi, Ms Draupadi....

Trisha Das is the best selling author of Never Meant To Stay (The Grand Samara, in India), a big-hearted romcom set in Delhi, Ms Draupadi Kuru: After the Pandavas and its sequel The Misters Kuru: A Return to Mahabharata, which feature mythological characters dropping down from heaven into modern day Delhi, Kama’s Last Sutra, a historical time-travel romance set in Khajuraho, The Mahabharata Re-imagined, The Art of the Television Interview and the widely translated How to write a Documentary Script. Ms Draupadi Kuru was nominated for the MAMI Word to Screen award.Trisha has also written columns and short stories for Magical Women, a feminist fantasy anthology, and publications like Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Grazia India, Hindustan Times, The Nod Mag and Scroll. In her film-making career, Trisha has directed over 40 documentaries. She's won an Indian National Film Award and was the University of Georgia’s International Artist of the year as well as a visiting artist at the University of Michigan, New York University, INSEAD and Emory College. Her films have been widely screened at international film festivals, telecast on the Discovery Channel, the Star Network and NDTV and have helped propel funding for grassroots social change across India.
Ganesh
Best Non-Fiction

Ganesh N. Devy

Prof. Devy is a thinker, cultural activist and institution builder. He is currently Senior Professor of Eminence....

Prof. Devy is a thinker, cultural activist and institution builder. He is currently Senior Professor of Eminence and Director, School of Civilization, Somaiya Vidyavihar University and was previously Obaid Siddiqi Chair Professor at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, and Director, Adivasi Academy, Tejgadh, and Professor of English at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. He led the People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI), a comprehensive documentation of all living Indian languages, forming a fifty-volume PLSI Series. He has received several awards for his writing as well as for his community work, including the Padma Shri, Prince Claus Award, and Linguapax Award. His English publications include After Amnesia, Of Many Heroes, Painted Words, Nomad Called Thief, The Question of Silence, Countering Violence, The Crisis Within: On Knowledge and Education in India, and Mahabharata: The Epic and the Nation and India: A Linguistic Civilization. He, alongside Ravi Korisettar and Tony Joseph, is the editor of The Indians: Histories of a Civilization. In 1996, he gave up his academic career in order to initiate work with the Denotified and Nomadic Tribes (DNT) and Adivasis. During this work, he created the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre at Baroda, the Adivasis Academy at Tejgadh, the DNT-Rights Action Group and several other initiatives.
Manu
Best Non-Fiction

Manu S Pillai

Manu S. Pillai is a historian and the author of five books, most recently Gods, Guns & Missionaries: The Making....

Manu S. Pillai is a historian and the author of five books, most recently Gods, Guns & Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity. A winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar for his first book, The Ivory Throne, he is also a columnist at Mint Lounge. Manu holds a PhD in history from King's College London.
Best Non-Fiction

Shrayana Bhattacharya

Shrayana Bhattacharya is a Senior Economist with the World Bank's Social Protection team in South Asia. Trained in development.....

Shrayana Bhattacharya is a Senior Economist with the World Bank's Social Protection team in South Asia. Trained in development economics at Delhi University and Harvard University, she led various research projects with SEWA Union on women working in the Indian informal economy before joining the World Bank in 2013. Based on fifteen years of research, her debut book of non-fiction Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh: India's Lonely Young Women and the Search for Intimacy and Independence was published in 2021. She has won several prizes for her writing, including the AutHer Prize (2022), and was also shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Award (2023). She lives between Dhaka and Delhi.
Best Children

Devashish Makhija

Devashish Makhija has written and directed the full-length award-winning feature films Joram, Bhonsle and Ajji — all three ....

Devashish Makhija has written and directed the full-length award-winning feature films Joram, Bhonsle and Ajji — all three of which premiered at IFFR Rotterdam and BIFF Busan — and the multiple-award-winning short films Cycle, Cheepatakadumpa, Taandav, El'ayichi, Agli Baar, Rahim Murge pe mat ro, Absent, and Happy. Joram won two Filmfare Awards (2023) for Best Film (Critics) and Best Story; and two Film Critics Guild awards for Best Writing and Best Editing. Bhonsle won a National Award and a Film Critics Guild award in 2021. Makhija is a multi-practice artist. He has had his own solo art show 'Occupying Silence. He is a prolific writer, having written the bestselling children's books When Ali became Bajrangbali, Why Paploo was perplexed and We are the dancing forest, a collection of short stories Forgetting (now republished as Joram), and the multiple-award-winning YA novel Oonga. He has an anthology of poems Bewilderness is forthcoming. He has been widely published by the Sahitya Akademi, HarperCollins India, Penguin Random House India, Akashic, Red River, Tulika, Scholastic India, and many others.
Priya-Dutt
Best Children

Priya Dutt

Priya Dutt has donned several hats that of a Member of Parliament, a Trustee Chairperson of the Nargis Dutt Foundation....

Priya Dutt has donned several hats that of a Member of Parliament, a Trustee Chairperson of the Nargis Dutt Foundation, an entrepreneur, a wife, a mother, a social activist, a friend and a common citizen. She is the daughter of the legendary Smt Nargis and Shri Sunil Dutt, who have been great humanitarians. Her greatest influence in her life has been her father. Her turning point in life came in 1987 when she accompanied her father on a 78 days peace march from Mumbai to Amritsar, covering a distance of over 2700 kms with a message ‘Give Peace a Chance’. It was a time when the country, especially Punjab was under a cloud of violence and communal discord. This walkathon gave her unforgettable insights into the real India, which touched her heart deeply. In 1988, along with her father she marched from Nagasaki to Hiroshima, Japan for World Peace and Nuclear Disarmament spreading the philosophies of the great Mahatma of brotherhood, understanding and non-violence.After her father passed away in 2005, she not only continued the political legacy he left behind but also spearheaded the Nargis Dutt Foundation. The foundation works in the areas of Health and Education and has grown by leaps and bounds with having equipped over100 hospitals across rural India with medical equipment, holding medical camps for the poor, cancer screening camps, scholarships for meritorious students and holistically developing rural schools with clean sanitation, clean drinking water, computer labs, playgrounds, e learning and extracurricular activities. Priya has been a Member of Parliament for two terms (2005 & 2009 general elections) and during this time she played a very important role in uplifting the needs of the poor, empowering women and improving health for her Mumbai North West constituency and beyond.
Best Children

Anasuya Vaidya

Anasuya Vaidya is the Director — Akshara Theatre. As the second-generation co-founder and director of Akshara Theatre, Anusuya....

Anasuya Vaidya is the Director — Akshara Theatre. As the second-generation co-founder and director of Akshara Theatre, Anusuya continues to run it as her late parents—playwright Gopal Sharman and thespian Jalabala Vaidya—envisioned it: a blend of classical Indian culture and modern theatrical expression.
Best Debut

Anita Nair

Anita Nair is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of the novels The Better Man, Ladies Coupé, Mistress, Lessons....

Anita Nair is the bestselling and critically acclaimed author of the novels The Better Man, Ladies CoupĂ©, Mistress, Lessons in Forgetting, Idris: Keeper of the Light and Alphabet Soup for Lovers. She has also authored a crime series featuring Inspector Gowda. Anita Nair’s other books include a collection of poems titled Malabar Mind, a collection of essays titled Goodnight & God Bless and six books for children. Anita Nair has also written two plays and the screenplay for the movie adaptation of her novel Lessons in Forgetting which was part of the Indian Panorama at IFFI 2012 and won the National Film Award in 2013. Among other awards, she was also given the Sahitya Akademi award and the Crossword Prize. Her books have been translated into over thirty-one languages around the world. She is also the founder of the creative writing and mentorship program Anita’s Attic.
Best Debut

Suvir Saran

Suvir Saran is a chef, cookbook author, educator as well as a farmer who specializes in bringing Indian cooking to the....

Suvir Saran is a chef, cookbook author, educator as well as a farmer who specializes in bringing Indian cooking to the American kitchen. Currently lives on American Masala Farm with his partner Charlie, in Hebron, New York. He studied visual arts at Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay before leaving India in 1993 to study in New York City at the School of Visual Arts. During this time, he enjoyed cooking and entertaining friends when he was not working or going to school. He quickly took what was a hobby and turned it into a catering business Rasoi, The Indian Kitchen. In 1997 joined the staff at Department of Food and Nutrition at New York University's Professional Development and Continuing Education Program. Later becoming an executive chef at DĂ©vi on East 18th Street in New York City, appearing on Bravo's Top Chef: Masters (Season 3) and writing several bestselling cookbooks. On 10 November 2015, Suvir Saran hosted an evening of bold Indian cuisine as part of the University of Notre Dame's prestigious celebrity chef series.
Best Debut

Sutapa Basu

Award-winning writer Sutapa Basu is an educationist, poet, storyteller, and translator. Her historical novel, The Curse....

Award-winning writer Sutapa Basu is an educationist, poet, storyteller, and translator. Her historical novel, The Curse of Nader Shah won the AutHer Award for Fiction (2019). She won the TOI Amish Tripathi’s Write India Campaign (2016). She has received an award for Excellence in Publishing by the Public Diplomacy Forum (2021). She is known for her historical fiction such as Padmavati, The Legend of Genghis Khan, and The Queen Tells Her Own Story. She has published on Kindle (Out of the Blue: Stories with a Twist, 2020) as well as worked with traditional publishers (The Cursed Inheritance, 2021; The Anatomy of Affection: tales that Touch the Heart, 2024). She has translated splendidly from Bengali into English Dakshinaranjan Mitra Majumdar’s folktales from Bengal as Thakurmar Jhuli: Princesses, Monsters and Magical Creatures (2021). Her short stories and poems have been published in anthologies and literary spaces like Muse India and Kaafiyana.

Introducing

Jaya Bhattacharji Rose

Literary Director

Host of TOI Bookmark, the Times of India’s marquee literary podcast; co-founder Ace Literary Consulting and Associate Professor, School of Modern Media Studies, UPES University. She is the founder of India’s most popular blog on the publishing industry and former Editorial Manager South Asia, Routledge (Taylor and Francis).

She has previously been Commissioning Editor and Marketing, Promotions, and Publicity Director, Zubaan (Kali for Women). She wrote the first book market report of India for Publishers Association UK. She has been a jury member for Crossword Book Awards, Scholastic Writing Awards, and mentored the Jaipur Lit Fest team of bloggers in 2019. She has also conceptualized the popular Scholastic Writers Academy programme.

Smita Mishra

Editorial Director

Smita Mishra is the Editor of Times of India Lifestyle, Times Food, and Times Travel. She is known for crafting in-depth and compelling features that blend storytelling with analysis. Her passion lies in exploring culinary arts, travel, style, relationships, health and literature through her writing. She leads TOI Books and oversees the editorial aspects of Times of India’s literary initiatives, such as Times Literature Festivals and AutHer Awards. Smita brings a wealth of expertise in the digital realm, stemming from her previous roles at Zee News, Dainik Jagran, and India Today. Her contributions have been pivotal in launching numerous online properties and making meaningful editorial enhancements.

Surabhi Rawat

Editorial Co-director

Surabhi Rawat is a lifestyle journalist currently working with Timesofindia.com. She has over 10 years of work experience and she has covered lifestyle, health, and entertainment beats. Currently, she covers Books, Soul Search, Arts, and Trending for The Times of India’s website and is also one of the core team members for AutHer Awards, Times Litfest, and TOI Write India.

Book Reading Sessions

View All

About JK Paper

JK Paper’s legacy goes back to 1938 with setting up of Straw Products ltd. in Bhopal.
In the year 1962, Unit JKPM at Rayagada (Odhisa) was established. Today JK Paper is a leading Indian player in Office Papers, Coated Papers, Writing and Printing Papers and High-end Packaging Boards.

Today JK Paper has 3 integrated Pulp and Paper Mills viz; Unit JKPM at Rayagada (Odisha) near the Eastern coast of India and Unit CPM at Songadh (Gujarat) on the Western coast & Unit SPM at Kagaznagar, Telangana. With total installed capacity is 761,000 TPA, JK Paper is amongst the biggest Paper mills in the country.

From being the pioneer of branded Paper in India, the company today is a leading Sustainable Paper Product Solutions Provider.

About TOI

The Times of India is India’s most-read English newspaper. More than 17 million readers wake up to one of its 57 editions every morning. With a daily circulation of more than 4 million copies, it is the world’s largest-selling English newspaper. The Times of India’s website (www.timesofindia.com) ranks among the world’s most-visited news sites.

Published since 1838, the paper has shown no signs of aging and keeps reinventing itself to re`main in step with its young readership. Known as a trend-setter that adheres to the highest standards of journalism, The Times of India not only provides news coverage of unrivalled depth and breadth but also places equal, often greater, emphasis on perspective and context to empower the reader. Its coverage includes every topic and trend of interest to the reader – national, international, city, community, business, health, science, technology, sports, lifestyle and entertainment. Instead of taking the traditional role of newspapers to “mould public opinion”, The Times of India provides the choices that enable readers to arrive at their own conclusions.

The reader is the centre of its universe.

“

"To all the budding writers, doesn't matter whether you are a woman or a man, you should take your writing seriously. Because if you don't take it seriously, nobody else is going to take it seriously."

- Sutapa BasuAuthor of 'The Curse of Nader Shah'
“

"Write every day! Everybody has a book inside them. The ones that actually get it out are from the ones that actually sit down and start writing."

- Manjul BajajAuthor of 'In Search of Heer'
“

"Write the way you feel. If it doesn't move you, it will not move anybody else."

- Madhu GurungAuthor of 'Tibet with my Eyes Closed'
“

"Just keep writing and find your own voice. There's no point in mimicking other people and catering to a market. Be true to yourself.”

- Radhika Oberoiauthor of 'Stillborn Season'
“

"My advice to any author, whether writing on history or anything else, write about something you're passionate about. Don't write just for the sake of writing. If you're writing on history, there's only one thumb rule and that is Research, Research, and some more Research."

- Rana Safviauthor of Shahjahanabad: The Living City of Old Delhi