Winners

*2nd place not awarded since two entries tied for the first prize. The prize monies for the first and second place were split equally between the two winners.

Special Mention:

(The translator wins a special mention prize of INR 5,000 for her exemplary translation)

All prizes are sponsored by The Mozhi Trust.

It was a true privilege to serve on the jury for the Mozhi Prize 2025 contest, alongside Abdul Rasheed and Arunava Sinha. The process was an enriching journey of learning and discovery, offering a rare and invigorating glimpse into the vitality, range, and ambition of contemporary short fiction in translation.

What excited me most was the sense of experimentation on display—the willingness of writers and translators to test the elasticity of the short story form while remaining attentive to voice, rhythm, and narrative integrity. In arriving at the prize-winning selection, I was guided by a balance of criteria: sustained readerly engagement, imaginative risk-taking, sensitivity and skill in translation, and, above all, the intrinsic strength and resonance of the story itself.

To be part of a platform that fosters such careful, committed work across languages was both thrilling and humbling. The Mozhi Prize is doing something genuinely vital, and I am honoured to have contributed, in however small a way, to this remarkable endeavour.

It was a mix of emotions to read through the longlisted eleven short stories from different Indian languages. I was pleased to see the stories breaking free from predictable childhood nostalgia and rigid political correctness. At the same time, it was a little unsettling to notice that even new works by seasoned short story writers seemed influenced by cinematic scripts and digital formulae. I could sense that the immortal joy of plain storytelling was being overtaken by the more mortal thrill of providing twists in the tales.

However, when we came together to choose the best among the stories, it was heartening to find that we were unanimous. We chose robust storytelling. So robust that the thin line between the original language and its translation was rarely visible.

I thank Mozhi for preserving the soul of plain storytelling.

All the entries for the Mozhi Prize opened new windows into writing from the languages of India. The sheer range of stories, styles, themes, settings, characters, and composition were a delightful affirmation of the plurality of Indian literatures—and of the crucial role translators play in making these multiworlds legible to all of us. The winning stories stood out in particular for the writers’ use of fiction as a means to showing us new worlds, and to the courage of the translators in carrying these stories across languages with verve and flair, revealing remarkable talent for inhabiting two languages. The stories that have won this year stretch and widen the scope of fiction, and the translations match their inventiveness and flourish unobtrusively but elegantly.

Since we received far fewer submissions than usual, we have decided not to publish the longlist this year.

Hello, and wish you a happy new year!

After yet another interesting reading period and some intense discussions, we are delighted to announce the results of the Mozhi Prize 2025, our 4th edition. 

This year, we received far fewer responses than what has been our usual fare: only 55 entries in all (versus 120 – 200 in previous editions). As a result, we had a shorter longlist than usual. Like all our recent editions, we received entries from a number of unique Indian source languages (13 this year). The largest number of entries were from Hindi and Tamil (10 each), with Kannada, Malayalam and Assamese not far behind. We also received entries from Kashmiri, Manipuri and Punjabi. Even when we had restricted the entries to original stories published between 2000 and 2025, we were pleasantly surprised to note that nearly 50% of all entries were published after 2020. 71% of the entries were from translators under the age of 40. 

We wondered why we received fewer submissions than usual. One reason that pops out for us is a crucial change we had made in the rules this time. While the competition was open to emerging translators across the country working to translate short fiction from any Indian language into English, we wanted to read more contemporary short stories. So, we asked that translators choose stories originally published between the years 2000 and 2025 to translate. As always, we had asked that the translator obtain rights to translate the story and publish the translation.

While we underscore the necessity of this process,  we also understand the constraint this demand may place on emerging translators. We are thinking about how to fine-tune the format of the contest in coming years. 

Going by our usual process, we gave equal weightage to the quality of the translation—particularly looking for translations with creative, inventive solutions to problems posed by the source text—as well as the aesthetic quality of the story selected for translation in coming up with the longlist.

However, this year, we found it hard to locate entries that satisfied us on both counts. With some entries, we found the translation particularly interesting, even if we weren’t completely taken in by the story. With a few others, we loved the nuanced way the story was constructed even if we thought the translation needed more polish.

At Mozhi, we accord equal importance to both aspects with a view to celebrating the role of the translator as a curator and not merely a purveyor of words. It was reassuring to see translators choose stories with emotional depth, fine characters, and detailed world-building such as The Door (Padmanabha Bhat Shevkar) and Salt (Balijit), particularly from writers who are relatively undiscovered in English. We hope to see more such distinctive stories in future editions. 

Our longlist was shared with our panel of judges — Janice Pariat, Arunava Sinha and Abdul Rasheed — who scored the entries and came up with a shortlist of 8 stories. After a spirited discussion on the merits of each story, they decided on – for the first time in the history of the Mozhi Prize – a shared first prize between two entries. Consequently, we do not have a second prize this time. In addition to the third prize, the judges also decided on a joint special mention for an entry whose translation stood out for them. You can read more about their experience under the citation tab. We are grateful to the judges for their generous investment of time and effort in the Mozhi Prize. We also thank Uma Shirodkar (Marathi – English translator) for extending a hand in screening the submissions.

And finally, our congratulations to all the winners!! We will publish the winning entries soon. Stay tuned to read the stories and learn more about the authors.

Best,

Suchitra & Priyamvada

Team Mozhi

All prizes are sponsored by The Mozhi Trust.

We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the Mozhi Prize 2025. 

This year, we received far fewer responses than what has been our usual fare: only 55 entries in all (versus 120 – 200 in previous editions). The entries were screened by us (Suchitra and Priyamvada) along with Uma Shirodkar (Marathi – English translator) who generously consented to be a guest reader this time. 

Together, we came up with a longlist of stories for the judges to read. Since the overall submissions were much lower than previous editions, we are not publishing a longlist this year. However, the longlist was, as it usually turns out for us, the top 25-30% of all submissions.

Our judges — Janice Pariat, Arunava Sinha and Abdul Rasheed — scored the entries and came up with a shortlist of 8 stories. We are delighted to share the shortlist of the Mozhi Prize 2025, in no particular order, below. Congratulations to all the shortlisted translators!

The winners of the Prize will be announced by Jan 10, 2026. Please follow our page and our Twitter (X)/Instagram handle @mozhispaces for updates. Thank you!

The Mozhi Prize 2025 – Shortlist