Shillong, Oct 9: Two Booker Prize winners—Kiran Desai and Damon Galgut—will feature at the sixth edition of the Shillong Literary Festival to be held from November 12 to 14 at Ward’s Lake, the Tourism Department announced on Friday.
Desai, who won the Booker in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss and was shortlisted again in 2025 for The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, and Galgut, who won the 2021 Booker for The Promise after three shortlists, will headline the festival’s international line-up. Galgut published his first novel at 17.
This is the first major announcement for Edition VI, with more names to follow in the coming weeks.
The festival will run with pre-event programming including ‘First Bloom: Discovering New Writing from the Northeast’ – an open call for emerging writers in fiction and non-fiction with entries closing October 20.
Prize pool is Rs 75,000, with Rs 50,000 for winner and Rs 25,000 for runner-up.
Three workshops will be held at State Convention Centre—Career Prospects by Kanishka Gupta on October 26, Creative Writing by Mitra Phukan and Lalnunsanga Ralte on October 26, and Ways of Visual Practice by Menty Jamir, Indrajit Khambe and Bipin Aspatwar on November 11.
Supported by the Department of Tourism, the festival will celebrate storytelling traditions of the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo communities alongside national and international narratives.
