Four Scholars And Writers Win Guggenheim Fellowships

Photo (Top Row Left to Right): Vinod Vaikuntanathan, Vivek Narayanan (YouTube screenshot)
Photo (Bottom Row Left to Right): Amitav Ghosh, Megha Majumdar (MIT)

India-West News Desk

NEW YORK, NY – Four scholars and writers of Indian origin have been selected for the 2026 Guggenheim Fellowships, joining the 101st class of honorees announced by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

The foundation named 223 recipients this year across 55 disciplines after reviewing nearly 5,000 applications through a competitive peer-review process.

Those recognized include Amitav Ghosh in general nonfiction, Megha Majumdar in fiction, Vivek Narayanan in poetry, and Vinod Vaikuntanathan in computer science.

Brooklyn-based author Amitav Ghosh is known for literary works centered on history, identity and South Asia. He was awarded India’s Jnanpith Award in 2018.

Megha Majumdar, who teaches at CUNY Hunter College, rose to prominence with her debut novel ‘A Burning’, which became a New York Times bestseller. Her later novel, ‘A Guardian and a Thief’, was shortlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Fiction and won the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

Poet Vivek Narayanan teaches at George Mason University in Virginia. Born in India and raised in Zambia, he studied anthropology at Stanford University before earning a creative writing MFA from Boston University.

Vinod Vaikuntanathan, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specializes in cryptography and homomorphic encryption. He shared the 2022 Gödel Prize and also co-founded Duality Tech.

“Our new class of Guggenheim Fellows is representative of the world’s best thinkers, innovators, and creators in art, science, and scholarship,” foundation president Edward Hirsch said.

He said the fellows would continue to pursue “bold and inspiring work” despite current challenges.

Established in 1925, the foundation funds independent scholarship and creative work under what it describes as “the freest possible conditions.” It says it has awarded nearly $450 million to more than 19,000 fellows.

The 2026 class spans 97 academic institutions, 33 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, three Canadian provinces and eight other countries. The foundation said applications increased 50 percent in the creative arts and humanities and 86 percent in the sciences.