The Centre for the Creative and the Critical, Ashoka University, and Balliol College, Oxford have announced The Ved Mehta International Prize in Creative Nonfiction, an international book award in creative nonfiction. The award has been established in honour of writer Ved Mehta and carries a cash prize of £10,000. It will be given annually to the best book of creative nonfiction published anywhere in English (including translations) in the preceding year. If a translated book is chosen, the translator also will receive a prize of £2,000.

The first award will be given in 2026 for a book published in 2025. The shortlist will be announced in September, and the prize in November. The award ceremony will take place at Balliol and at Ashoka in alternate years.

The award will be decided by a panel of three judges chosen by an international advisory board convened by Ashoka University and Balliol College. This year’s jury comprises professors Merve Emre and Seamus Perry, and Pulitzer-Prize winning author and academic Vijay Seshadri.

The award is meant to recognise the more imaginative forms of nonfiction writing, and to acknowledge the stretching of genre-related boundaries in creative nonfiction. This may include memoir and autobiography, portraits of historians, philosophers, and theologians, criticism, travel writing, and political commentary. While these categories are not restrictive, they may all be considered.

Ved Mehta (1934-2021) was a pioneer of many forms of creative nonfiction, ranging from memoir and autobiography to portraits of historians, philosophers, and theologians, as well as criticism and political commentary.

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