Penguin Random House | New Delhi, 09/11/2017

India’s Most Beautiful Books

Awarded by professionals to professionals, they are among the most coveted prizes in the Indian book industry: the "Awards for Excellence in Book Production" by Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP). For once, what counts isn’t the content of the books, but their production. The prize is given for especially well-designed and beautifully produced books. The prestigious industry prize has traditionally been presented on the fringes of the Delhi Book Fair. Each year, publishers from all over India submit thousands of titles in hopes of winning a prize in one of the 13 award categories. This year, on Aug 31, a total of 108 titles from 56 publishers were awarded a prize or an honorable mention – and nine of them were published by Penguin Random House India.

First prize in their respective categories went to the bestselling reference books "Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent" by Pranay Lal and "The Knowledge Encyclopedia," as well as the two historical works "Dastan-e-Ghadar: The Tale of the Mutiny" by Zahir Dehlvi and "Besieged: Voices from Delhi 1857" by Mahmood Farooqui. A second prize each went to the biography "Amir Khusrau: The Man in Riddles" by Ankit Chadha, the Hindi-language book "Ram ki Gatha" by Devdutt Pattanaik, the "Minnie Storybook Collection," and "Muezza and Baby Jaan," a child-friendly collection of stories from the Koran by Anita Nair. In addition, the "Indian Accent Cookbook" received an honorable mention, or "Certificate of Merit," as did "Captain Amarinder Singh: The People’s Maharaja" by Khushwant Singh, which was published by Hay House India, a publishing house represented by Penguin Random House India.

This year's FIP Awards for Excellence in Book Production, which were awarded for the 37th time, were presented by Mahesh Sharma, India’s Minister of Culture and Tourism. He praised the efforts of the FIP industry association, and urged the award winners to contribute to improving the Indian people’s situation by continuing to publish high-quality books. Besides presenting the Awards for Excellence in Book Production, the Minister also pronounced the bestseller "Indica" the "Best Book for the year 2016-17."