We have a competition running at the moment to win a trip to India. It's one of our best ever. We thought it would be nice to highlight some Indian literature to compliment the competition but it's actually quite difficult to find contemporary Indian writers, in print, in translation and available. But we have put together a nice little list of classical Sanskrit epics alongside more recent Poetry and fiction.

Of course, it would be remiss of us not to mention the great Indian writing in English that include such well known names as Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Chandra, Vikas Swarup, Anita Desai, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri, Aravind Adiga and Gita Mehta.

Also, we mustn't forget a wealth of great travel writing and history.

This Monday coming, the winner is announced for the 2010 T.S. Eliot Prize. Those of you within reach of London's South Bank can hear nine of the ten shortlisted poets reading from their work. It's at the Royal Festival Hall and tickets are still available.

The shortlist contains collections by Simon Armitage (last year's chair of the judges), Annie Freud, John Haynes, Seamus Heaney, Pascale Petit, Robin Robertson, Fiona Sampson, Brian Turner, Derek Walcott and Sam Willetts.

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Today is National Poetry Day and its theme is "Heroes and Heroines"...

And talking of poetic heroes, last night Don Paterson won the 2009 Forward poetry prize. And his fellow Faber poet, Emma Jones, picked up the £5,000 Felix Dennis Prize Best First Collection for her "elliptical and visionary" debut The Striped World.

Sixteen years after he debuted on the poetry scene with the acclaimed collection Nil Nil, Don Paterson has triumphed over one of the strongest poetry shortlists in years to take the Forward prize for best collection with Rain, a work which judges said showed the Scottish poet's "total mastery of his art".

Paterson, 45, beat a line-up of acclaimed poets including Peter Porter, Sharon Olds and Glyn Maxwell to win the £10,000 award for Rain, a continuation of his personal and philosophical exploration of the world around him (more...)

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Poet and playwright Tony Harrison has won the inaugural PEN/Pinter prize for his "unmistakable and passionate voice"...

The prize is to be awarded annually to the writer who best exemplifies Harold Pinter's own quest to "define the real truth of our lives and our societies".

Harrison, who filed poems from the frontline in Bosnia for the Guardian in 1995, was selected by a panel of judges including Pinter's widow, the author Antonia Fraser, playwright Tom Stoppard and National Theatre director Nicholas Hytner. "When Tony's name came up it pretty much stopped the discussion," said Stoppard. "I think we all felt immediately that he was exactly the writer for the PEN/Pinter prize, and PEN/Pinter was exactly the prize for Tony. Harold would raise a glass to that." (More...)

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Well, it's not been a very well kept secret now, has it!?

Carol Ann Duffy has, according to the Beeb, been named "as the new Poet Laureate, the first woman to be appointed in the 341-year history of the post..." Well done Duffy!

Duffy, 53, who takes over immediately from Andrew Motion and will serve 10 years in the position, says she will give the says she will give the £5,750 annual payment away.

The author, who is best known for her collection The World's Wife, is also the first Scot to be named Laureate.