The 2025 Aficionado Award goes to Seagull Books, an independent publishing house based in Kolkata, India. The company was recognized with the award for their work publishing literature from around the world with an exceptional eye for quality, diversity and design.
Seagull Books is also engaged in culture through The Seagull Foundation for the Arts and The Seagull School of Publishing. The Aficionado Award honors individuals, organizations and initiatives that have a lasting impact on the publishing industry.
After the presentation of the shortlisted projects at the Salone Internazionale del Libro di Torino, the prize is awarded by an international publishing community and presented at Frankfurter Buchmesse. Naveen Kishore (publisher) and Sunandini Banerjee (senior editor and graphic designer) will receive the award on behalf of the Seagull Books team.
The Panel and award ceremony will be held on 16 October 2025 at Frankfurter Buchmesse – Frankfurt International Stage – Foyer Hall 5.1/6.1
Seagull will be represented by Naveen Kishore (Seagull Books), Sunandini Banerjee (Seagull Books), Camilla Cottafavi (Feltrinelli). The moderator is Erin Cox (Frankfurter Buchmesse)
The winning project was described by the jury as follows:
Founded in 1982, the Calcutta-based publishing house Seagull Books started out specializing in books about art, theater and cinema. In 2005, they expanded their catalog to include the finest that world literature has to offer, from their prestigious ‘Africa List’ to a variety of European voices, and from ‘The Arab’ and ‘The India List’ to a collection of new and classic queer literature. Their dedication to quality shines through in the standard of the works, as well as in their dedication to the translations and designs.
They have also been admirably active with at least two other branches: ‘The Seagull Foundation for the Arts’ supports the (fine) arts in India and promotes experimentation and collaboration between different disciplines. They also run ‘The Seagull School of Publishing,’ where they share their insights and expertise with people interested in taking up a career in publishing. The way in which they connect all of these activities – with the authors, the artists, the translators and designers – is truly inspirational.
The Aficionado Award
The international Aficionado Award is dedicated to passionate and committed publishing professionals. It was created to honor outstanding projects and to network, support and promote the personalities behind them. The founders are Tom Kraushaar (Klett-Cotta, Germany), Michael Gaeb (Literarische Agentur Eggers & Gaeb, Germany), Rebecca Servadio (London Literary Scouting, UK), and Aleksi Siltala (Siltala Publishing, Finland). The award is organized in cooperation with, and with the financial support of, Frankfurter Buchmesse and the Salone del Libro di Torino.
In addition to the winning project, the other nominees for 2025 were: La Disparition (Marseille), a unique media project that records what is disappearing from our world, and zoraLit (Berlin), a cooperative of literary creators who develop joint projects and promote a fair, sustainable and inclusive publishing industry. In 2024, the Aficionado Award went to the Brazilian poetry subscription platform Círculo de Poemas, an imprint of Fósforo Editora, São Paulo.
The shortlisted candidates for the Aficionado Award 2025 were chosen from among numerous projects by a preliminary jury composed of Laurence Laluyaux (RCW Literary Agency, UK), Peter van der Zwaag (De Bezige Bij, Netherlands), and Camilla Cottafavi (Feltrinelli, Italy).
Naveen Kishore is publisher, Seagull Books, a company he founded in 1982. Recipient of the Goethe Medal and a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, Kishore is also a published poet, a much-exhibited photographer as well as a theatre lighting designer.
Sunandini Banerjee is senior editor and graphic designer at Seagull Books, where she has this August completed 25 years of her creative journey. She is a teacher at the Seagull School of Publishing, and a translator. Her digital collages, created in the first instance for many of Seagull’s book covers, catalogs and illustrated books, have been exhibited in India and abroad. She lives and works in Kolkata.
