With no dearth of talented women authors in the country, AutHer Awards 2020 was a celebration like none other.
Held at Taj Palace, New Delhi, on March 8 – the aim of the awards was to honour these amazing women, in front of many renowned names in the crowd there to cheer for them.
The awards were presented in 4 categories and included a trophy, along with a cash prize of ₹1 lakh.
The winners were as followed:
Literary Fiction: Madhuri Vijay for The Far Field
Apart from these categories, Popular Choice Award was given to Sutapa Basu on the basis of maximum number of votes. Whereas the Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Legendary author Nayantara Sahgal.
AutHer Awards received 850 entries, sent by both, the authors and the publishers, and the winners were decided by the jury which included names like Shobhaa De, Ashwin Sanghi, Gitanjali Chatterjee and ScoopWhoop co-founder Rishi Pratim Mukherjee.
In the end, for anyone who thinks ‘why do we need a separate award from women?’, Literary Director Vinita Dawra Nangia has an answer:
Why should there be an award for women authors? This is to encourage them and recognise their talent because men still seem to have a disproportionate advantage in the field of publishing. It was 174 years ago that Bronte Sisters wrote under the pseudonym of a man because it was felt women writing fiction would not be acceptable in men and although a lot has changed after that, but women continue to use pseudonyms and initials and men dominate the bestselling lists. We need to change all that.