Deepa Malik co-authored book wins Ekamra award

Co-authored by India’s first female Paralympic medallist Deepa Malik, ‘Bring It On’ was on Saturday awarded with Ekamra Sports Literature Festival’s (ESLF) Sports Book of the Year 2025 award. ‘The Diary of a Cricketer’s Wife’, written by Puja Pujara — Test great Cheteshwar Pujara’s spouse — and Namita Kala was awarded ESLF’s Biography of the Year 2025.

Other sports books that won this year’s ESLF awards were ‘The One, Cricket, My Life and More’ by Shikhar Dhawan, Chandresh Narayan and Namita Kala for Autobiography of the Year, and ‘Fearless’ written by Mohinder Amarnath and Rajinder Amarnath for Cricket Book of the Year. ‘Sacred Grounds: A Journey Through People’s Football in India’ got the Special Jury Award and Harper Collins for Publisher of the Year.

ELSF, which celebrated the seventh season of its event on Saturday, also hosted a special panel discussion with Olympic gold medallist and world record holder high jumper Javier Sotomayor, along with India’s current national record holder Tejaswin Shankar. The annual ESLF event also featured special sessions by Italian author Franco Nugnes, Palestinian middle-distance runner Mohammed Dwedar, Deepa, cricket writer and filmmaker Jarrod Kimber, authors Sandeep Menon (Sacred Grounds) and Jaydeep Basu (Who Stole My Football), hurdler Shourya Ambure, triple jumper Poorva Sawant, and middle and long-distance runner Bushra Khan. Meanwhile, ELSF Director Sundeep Misra announced plans to make the award global in 2026 and recognise international sports writers for their work.