The battlelines are drawn, and the winner will be declared soon. The GUIDE tells you why you should drop by at tonight's Vodafone Crossword book awards that pit literary giants against one another

A bevy of Indian authors have been grabbing the limelight thanks to international awards like the Booker. The Vodafone Crossword Book Awards, launched in 1998, is at-home recognition that rewards the best of Indian writing at an event that bring academics, book critics, readers and publishers under one roof.

Amitav Ghosh has been nominated for Sea of Poppies

Salman Rushdie has been nominated for The Enchantress of Florence

How it works: Publishers submit a list of quality writing published in 2008. The panel of judges (academicians, literary critics and writers), shortlist the best for the competition, and an announcement follows a month before the final event. The four competition categories include fiction, non-fiction, Indian literature in translation, and the Popular award where people vote for their favourite book via SMS. The identity of the judges is kept a secret till the evening of the event.

This year, the contenders in the Fiction category include Salman Rushdie for The Enchantress of Florence, Amitav Ghosh for Sea of Poppies and Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth. The non-fiction category includes Curfewed Nights by Basharat Peer, Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country by Sudeep Chakravarti, and The Last Jews of Kerala by Edna Fernandes. In the translation category, Aatish Taseer's Manto Selected Stories and Dissonance and Other Stories by KS Subramanian have been shortlisted.

What you can expect: The event will start with an introductory lecture by author Nayantara Sehgal, on Indian literature. The jury will then announce the winner in each category. Winners receive Rs 3 lakh in cash, a trophy and a citation. The winners of the Popular award receive Rs 1 lakh and a citation. Excerpts from the shortlisted authors' books will be compiled and published by Crossword. Surprisingly, Man Booker prize winner Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger doesn't find space in the final fiction shortlist.

"My book came out last year but thanks to the shortlist, it is back on the front shelves of bookstores," says author Anuradha Roy, nominated for An Atlas of Impossible Longing.

Amitav Ghosh has been nominated for Sea of Poppies