New Delhi, July 23 - Novelist Amitav Ghosh shared the Vodafone-Crossword Book Awards 2008 for his book 'Sea of Poppies' with writer-reviewer Neel Mukherjee for his novel 'Past Continuous' in the English fiction category, a press statement issued here Thursday said.

The awards were announced at a glittering function in the Nehru Auditorium in Mumbai Thursday evening.

'Curfewed Nights' by Basharat Pir won the award in the English non-fiction category while Delhi-based writer Ira Pande's novel 'T'TA Professor', the English translation of veteran journalist Shyam Manohar Joshi's novel of the same name, won the award in the category for Indian language fiction translation. The book was originally written in Hindi.

Pallavi Iyer won the Vodafone-Crossword Popular Book Award for her book, 'Smoke & Mirrors'.

Sahitya Akademi and Commonwealth prize winning author Nayantara Sahgal was the chief guest at the function.

The panel of judges comprised of Usha K.R, Rukmini Bhaya-Nair, Mukund Padmanabhan, Harsh Sethi, Jerry Rao and Jyotirmay Sharma, Arunava Sinha and Rita Kothari.