The AutHer Awards 2023 winners were announced at a gala ceremony in New Delhi on March 19, 2023. Eminent journalist Barkha Dutt won the AutHer Award 2023 in Best Non-Fiction category for her book 'To Hell and Back: Humans of COVID'.
The AutHer Awards, a joint initiative between JK Paper and The Times of India, honour and celebrates the best works by Indian women writers in four different categories, namely- Fiction, Non-fiction, Debut, and Children's literature.
Barkha Dutt won the award for her book 'To Hell and Back: Humans of COVID', in which she writes about how the COVID pandemic affected people. Instead of the numbers and statistics of the pandemic, she focuses on human stories.
On winning the award, Barkha said, "Out of 24 years of being a journalist, 2020-21 would have probably been the toughest years of my professional and personal life, tougher than reporting war and conflict. We were four people in a Maruti Ertiga, travelling the length and breadth of India reporting about the pandemic... Somewhere along the way of reporting the pandemic, I lost my father to COVID-- I became the story that I was reporting. And the only way I knew to deal with it was to go out and report again. This book is drawn from the stories of people, whom I met. I would like to thank the people who shared their stories with me in very difficult times... It means a lot to me to be recognised... I feel my life has been bookended-- from Kargil to COVID, in some ways."
The other shortlisted books in Best Non-fiction category were:
1. 'Chemical Khichdi: How I Hacked My Mental Health' by Aparna Piramal Raje
Aparna's 'Chemical Khichdi' is a part-memoir and part self-help book that provides a pathway for anyone who is dealing with a mental health issues, or their family or caregivers.
2. 'Rani Durgawati: The Forgotten Life of a Warrior Queen' by Nandini Sengupta
As the title suggests, this is a biography of 'Rani Durgawati', a warrior queen of a tribal kingdom, whose story is forgotten by the world at large. However, she lives on in the songs and folk tales of her people even today.
Apart from this, the Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Shashi Deshpande, and the Popular Choice Awards, based on online voting, was given to Vaishnavi Roy for her book 'Unwind'. This year, a new award for Best Manuscript was also included. It was given to Aditi Sowmyanarayan for 'With You, Right Through', while Ankita Pal was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for 'Throne of Dragonix'.
Check out the complete list of AutHer Awards 2023 jury and winners here.
