The 2024–2025 Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize has been awarded to Bitan Chakraborty and Malati Mukherjee for their remarkable work, The Blight and Seven Short Stories (Shambhabi The Third Eye Imprint, 2024). The laureates were revealed through the Prize’s official online platforms (@tagoreprize) from Copenhagen.

This year’s prize recognizes a literary work that examines the complexities of human nature with striking honesty and artistic refinement. In The Blight and Seven Short Stories, Chakraborty delves into the darker impulses that shape human behavior—ambition, greed, envy, fear, and resignation—set against stark landscapes of deprivation and survival. His characters, often morally ambiguous and emotionally unmoored, illuminate a shared human condition shaped by circumstance, instinct, and vulnerability.

“Chakraborty’s stories do not seek to judge but to reveal,” said Maja Markunovic, Literary Director. “They hold up a mirror to our frailties, urging us to see with clarity rather than condemn.”

The prize is jointly awarded to Malati Mukherjee, whose English translation from the original Bengali preserves the emotional resonance, cultural nuance, and narrative precision of Chakraborty’s work. Her translation ensures that the author’s voice reaches readers across linguistic and cultural boundaries.

“Mukherjee’s translation plays a vital role in this recognition,” the judges noted, praising her ability to carry the emotional depth and cultural nuance of the original Bengali text to a global audience.

Founded in 2018 by Peter Bundalo, the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize honors outstanding literary works that embody the ideals of Rabindranath Tagore—universal humanism, introspection, and cultural harmony. The prize recognizes both original authors and translators whose contributions enrich global literature and foster cross‑cultural understanding.