Volume III of the Deodar Prize Anthology

Featuring the best ten stories from the third edition of the Deodar prize, this anthology is a collection of sparkling voices from different parts of India.

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Winner and Runners-up

Winner

Aadit Basu

For 'Touch'

Aadit is a writer and designer based in Bangalore. By day, he is the founder of Amorphous Design Lab, a studio working at the intersection of craft and technology, solving problems that no one knew they had. He started his career as an architectural photographer, then became an artist investigating contemporary culture, but writing has always been at the heart of it all. He writes across fiction, poetry and cultural criticism, often drawn to memory, the internet and the strange absurdities of urban life.

 

Runner-up

Gautam Bisht

For 'Death Doulas'

Gautam is a writer and researcher from Uttarakhand. His fiction and essays have appeared in The Bombay Literary Magazine, Outlook, Otherwise Magazine, The India Forum, Cafe Dissensus, Punch Magazine, and elsewhere. Like many of us, he started happy, turned sad, craved enlightenment, failed at watching his breath, charged his laptop, started writing, and now doesn’t know what he feels.

 

Runner-up

Kokum Mukul

For 'A Preservation of Monsoon'

Kokum Mukul lives and works out of Uttrakhand, India. He’s a student of Hindustani Classical music, and an autodidactic nerd whose curiosities range from Jungian psychology to Darwinian natural selection and foundational physics. One of his goals is to become a beginner at everything. He’s currently at work on a novel.

 

Special Mentions

'Mathematic Problems on Motherhood'
Anushka Nagarmath
Mumbai
'Store Room'
Debnita Chakravarti
Kolkata

Shortlist 2026

'The Pest'
Anshika Aggarwal
Hyderabad

'In This and Every Other'
Gayathri Sankar
Gurugram
 
'The Red Refrigerator and the White Clouds'
Sree
Kolkata
 
'A Preservation of Monsoon'
Kokum Mukul
Dehradun
 
'Mathematic Problems on Motherhood'
Anushka Nagarmath
Mumbai
'Five Stars'
Yashvardhan Shukla
Mumbai
 
'Zinnia'
Chakrika Pandey
Delhi

'The Ones Who Move When No One's Looking' 
Vardhini N C
Mumbai
 
'Touch'
Aadit Basu
Bengaluru
 
'All We Saw was Smoke'
Ayesha Siddiqa Khan
Bengaluru
'The Last Transmission of ISRV-Ananta'
Suhasini Ganguly
Kolkata
 
'Death Doulas'
Gautam Bisht
Dehradun
 
'Stalemate'
Firdaus Soni
Hyderabad
 
'Fruit Salad'
Dyuti Mishra
Berlin
 
'The Loneliness of a Goalkeeper'
Lian Dousel
Delhi
'Will'
Rahul Potluri
Ajman, UAE
 
'Atlas Goldline'
Soumyadipta Biswas
Bengaluru
 
'Leopard Ladies'
Shweta Ravi
Ahmedabad
 
'Store Room'
Debnita Chakravarti
Kolkata
 
'The Last Order'
Mriganka Kalita
Dubai

Jury 2026

Jane Borges

Jane Borges is an independent journalist, novelist, and oral historian. Her debut novel, Bombay Balchão (2019), was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puruskar and the Attagalatta Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize. She has also co-authored the non-fiction book Mafia Queens of Mumbai: Stories of Women from the Ganglands (2011), a chapter of which was adapted into Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bollywood film Gangubai Kathiawadi (2022).

 

Vivaan Shah

Vivaan Shah is an actor and writer. He is the author of the novels: ‘Living Hell’, ‘Midnight Freeway’, and ‘The Forsaken Wilderness’. He has also published two short stories: ‘Entombed’ for the Hindu Businessline and ‘The Reptile Kind’ for the Hindustan Times Sunday Supplement HT Brunch. As a playwright he wrote and directed the play ‘Phukatiya’ for Motley Productions. His play, ‘Comedy of Horrors’ is an adaptation of the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

 

Sangamithra Biswas

Sangamithra Biswas is the Publisher of Tranquebar, Westland Books' literary imprint. In her current role she commissions, edits and publishes fiction—both literary and commercial—as well as narrative non-fiction. Prior to working with Westland, she worked as an editor with Scholastic and Oxford University Press, where she started her career. In her eighteen-year long career uncovering and nurturing new writers remains the most rewarding part of her work.

 

ABOUT

The Deodar Prize is an effort to recognise new themes and voices in literary fiction in India.

The deodar cedar is indigenous to the Himalayas, where its local name Devdar translates from the original Sanskrit as "timber of the gods". But during the British Raj, the pine tree — a more eroding species with better commercial value — got extensively cultivated in regions of Uttarakhand and Himachal. Today, we need more diverse and native varieties of plants (like the deodar) to build the resilience of our mountains. This prize is a tribute to the tree that grounds our soil, gives us its seed in the deodar cedar cone, and builds our home in the mountain

This year, the Deodar 2026 prize is dedicated to the "short story" — a format that goes back 5000 years. The Epic of Gilgamesh — the oldest recorded short story — reveals the emerging consciousness of humankind, as it was stepping out of the Neolithic era. But as a larger example, it shows us how stories best capture, and fossilise, the cultural imagination of any time.

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Frequently Asked Questions

1What is the prize for the winning entry?
Every year, the Deodar Prize winner receives a cash award of Rs. 1 lakh, and the winning story is featured in a subsequent edition of The Bombay Literary Magazine. The two runners-up receive the Promising Writer award — feedback on their entries from a panel of editors, a cash prize of Rs. 25,000 each, and an offer of publication in Hammock Magazine. The winner will also be invited to participate in workshops and masterclasses in 2027 with the literary mentorship program South Asia Speaks.
2What is the eligibility criteria to participate?
All persons, above the age of 18, and holding Indian citizenship (resident in India or abroad) are eligible to submit. As we are trying to provide a platform for emerging writers, authors who have previously published a novel(s) are encouraged not to apply. If you have self-published a book, that is alright.

Note: the story being submitted for consideration should NOT have been published on any platform (online or offline).
3Can I submit more than one story?
No, we will accept only one submission per author.
4What is the deadline for submission?
Please send in your story by 11.59 pm, 15 July, 2026.
5Is there any theme or a word limit?
You are free to write any short fiction story in English. There is no theme this year. The maximum word limit is 2500 words (spaces not included).
6How do I submit my entry?
Please access our story submission form here
7Is there a submission format?
Yes. Kindly mention the title of your story and the number of words at the top of the page. Remember to number your pages and please do not mention your name on the story document. You may submit the document as a word doc or a PDF file.
8How is the submission fee used?
We use the submission fee to provide honorariums to interns who are recent graduates of literature programs (BA and MA). This is to provide them with some work experience, and enrich the landscape for literary pursuits in India. To inquire about internships at TDP, please write to community@deodarprize.in.
9When will the results be announced?
The winners will be announced end-October 2026.
10Who do I contact if I have any questions?
Please write to us on info@deodarprize.in