The Green Literature Festival; one of its kind literature festivals in the country has announced the longlist for the Green Honour Book Awards 2024 in the General Fiction/Non-Fiction category.
The GLF has been honouring the authors’ works since 2021. The GLF is curated by Sustainability Next and focuses on those books which play a profound effect in the preservation of the environment. GLF annually shortlists and honours books in three categories: Business, General Fiction & Non-Fiction, and Children. Using a combination of popular ratings on e-commerce platforms, reviews, and critical engagement with literature by the team and esteemed juries, three titles are awarded in each category – one GLF Book of the Year and two Honour Books. The idea behind awarding three books is to give readers a sense of the range of books on the environment coming out of India and build readership for this literature. The shortlisted and winning books are promoted through our handles and our partnership with Books on the Delhi Metro and the Earth Book Club, among others.
The Longlisted books are:
- Shades of Blue – Connecting the Drops in India’s Cities by Harini Nagendra and Seema Mundoli: Offering a glimpse into the water bodies in Indian cities, the book also addresses the threats they face. Interspersed with anecdotes, myths, and vignettes, it shows humans’ connection with water, historically and culturally.
- Intertidal - A Coast and Marsh Diary by Yuvan Aves: This deeply meditative memoir and journal, among other things, revolves around the writer’s inner and outer world. It takes the reader into estuaries, marshes, and coasts in and around Chennai and the multiple species that inhabit those spaces.
- The Living Air -The Pleasures of Birds and Birdwatching by Aasheesh Pittie: A collection of essays that offer a fresh perspective into birdwatching and its transformative experience.
- Women in the Wild - Stories of India’s Most Brilliant Women Wildlife Biologists; Edited by Anita Mani- A chronicle of India’s successful biologists and ecologists, their journeys in conservation, their struggles and victories, this book is an ode to the women who dared to fight for the natural world. It spotlights the role of women in conservation and their largely invisibilized stories.
- Marginlands - Indian Landscapes on the Brink by Arati Kumar Rao: A magical blend of captivating photography and evocative text, this book is a compelling narrative of India’s vanishing landscapes, the people entwined with them, and the knowledge they carry.
- Dattapaharam – Call of the Forest by V.J. James, translated by S. Ministhy: A moving tale about a group of friends searching for their guide and leader, this surreal novel inspects man’s deep connection with nature.
- A Walk up the Hill - Living with People and Nature by Madhav Gadgil: An earnest account of a celebrated ecologist’s life, a documentation of his work and encounters, this book blends personal journeys with the larger, crucial discussion on our relationship with the environment.
- The Covenant of Water by Abraham Varghese: A sprawling literary fiction novel set in the backwater regions and estuaries of Kerala, this book takes readers through three generations of an orthodox Malayali Christian family and subtly portrays water as a silent dictator – the creator of destinies.
- Rescuing a River Breeze by Mrinalini Harchandrai: Set in Goa, on the banks of River Mandovi, the novel traces the life of a girl on the cusp of womanhood battling identity in a war-torn region.
- Smoke and Ashes - A Writer’s Journey Through Opium’s Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh: Part travelogue, part memoir, this book delves into history to find the role of one plant in shaping the world economically and culturally today.
Image Credit: @Greenlitfest
