In the year 2012, Naresh Fernandes won the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize for Taj Mahal Foxtrot: The Story of Bombay's Jazz Age, an account of the city's thriving music scene between the 30s and 60s.
While last year editor, critic and author Nilanjana Roy won the prize for her debut novel The Wildings, a startling narrative in which the characters are street cats in Delhi’s Nizamuddin East.
The prize covers a wide range of genres, ranging from poetry, fiction (including graphic novels), creative non-fiction (travel writing, autobiography, biography, and narrative journalism) to drama.
Books published between June 2013 and June 2014 are eligible to participate and publishers and individual writers should send in their books by 15 July. The winners will be announced in November and will get a cash award of one lakh and a trophy at a ceremony in Delhi in December.
Authors from the subcontinent are also eligible for the award, but their books must be published in India. The publication must be in English or translated into English from an Indian language.