Seagull Books Wins Prestigious Aficionado Award at Frankfurt

Seagull Books wins the 2025 Aficionado Award, celebrating its global impact in publishing and collaboration, with recognition at Frankfurter Buchmesse.

on Sep 08, 2025

Seagull Books Wins Prestigious Aficionado Award at Frankfurt

Kolkata's Seagull Books—a small, independent publishing company familiar to many of our Publishing Perspectives readers through its activities in translation—has been announced today (September 3) as the winner of the Aficionado Award.

This is the honor established "to recognize and pay tribute to the people, companies, and initiatives that innovate and impress in original collaboration." The awards program is a cooperation between Italy's Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino and Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 15 to 19).

As every year, three nominees for the Aficionado Award were announced in Torino in May. Besides Seagull, the three nominees were La disparition (Marseille) an epistolary vehicle regarding things that are vanishing, and zoraLIT of Berlin, a community of literature professionals.

In October, both Seagull’s publisher Naveen Kishore and its senior editor and graphic designer Sunandini Banerjee are expected to be in Frankfurt to accept the Aficionado Award. A program is set for 11 to 11:30 a.m. on the International Stage in the foyers of Hall 5.1 and 6.1, featuring Kishore, Banerjee, Feltrinelli’s Camilla Cottafavi, and moderation by Publishing Perspectives.

‘Truly Inspirational’

Readers of United States-based Words Without Borders will remember that Seagull Books was that group's 2021 Ottaway Award-winner.

And in awarding Seagull to its 2025 recognition, the Aficionado program's explanation states:

Seagull was founded by Naveen Kishore in 1982. A Goethe Medal awardee and a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, Kishore is also a published poet, photographer, and theater lighting designer.

Sunandini Banerjee in August marked 25 years of her service. She is a teacher at the publishing school and a translator. Her digital collages, first done for many of Seagull's book covers, catalogues, and illustrated books, have been shown in India and internationally.