The Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize (KCBP) 2026 shortlist.

The New India Foundation (NIF) has announced a shortlist of five books for the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize (KCBP) 2026. All five titles were published in 2025 and deal with modern and contemporary India.

The prize will be presented on December 12 at the Bangalore Literature Festival 2026, and winners will receive ₹15 lakh. Here are the books on the shortlist:

A Man for All Seasons: The Life of K M Panikkar by Narayani Basu

Published by Westland (Context), Narayani Basu, a historian and foreign policy analyst, wrote this biography of statesman and diplomat K M Panikkar, a man who, as the title suggests, contributed to multiple policies and facets of modern India but, unfortunately, was not lionised as much as his contemporaries. The book is one of two biographies on the shortlist, tracing how individual careers helped shape the modern nation.…