From pages to impact: 10 inspiring authors to look out for in 2026

Indian literature in 2026 thrives through 10 authors blending professional expertise— from IT and engineering to psychology — with deep, culturally resonant storytelling.
XIPHIAS Editorial Desk
February 17, 2026 | IST
Publisher: Zee News (Consumer Connect)

XIPHIAS perspective

At XIPHIAS, we’ve seen how the most powerful stories are rarely “purely literary.” They’re built from real work—boardrooms, classrooms, clinics, startups, and lived experiences that shape identity, belonging, and ambition.

This list matters because it reflects a broader cultural shift: authors today are not writing around reality; they’re writing through it—using lived experience as both evidence and emotion.

If you’re interested in how leadership, migration, and meaning intersect, explore Varun Singh’s work and journey:

Indian writers are entering in 2026 with an authoritative feeling as opposed to having a literary mask. The voices of today’s writers have been developed in boardrooms, schools, laboratories, therapy offices, and busy cities where the boundaries of human tolerance are pushed to the extremes on a regular basis. The new generation of authors does not concern itself with genre or writing style or language but their intention in writing. Their labor, isolation, religion, immigration, identities, caste, governance, mentality, mission is examined without feeling of remoteness or sensationalism. They write to understand their unsettled times, to render their confusions of their inner worlds and social worlds into stories, theories, and thoughts that are grounded to them. These authors herald a new dawn to Indian literature where wisdom is superior to style and influence is quantified in resonance and not clatter.

Shreesh Shankar

Shreesh Shankar is an IT Professional and Squad Leader. His popular style of leadership and work is people-centred. Beyond his professional activity, he is also an author, whose writings are full of insight and interest in the emotional welfare and isolation in the modern life. His Embracing Solitude is a book that belongs to the people who are lonely despite being in the middle of the crowd. He does not think that being out of touch is a vulnerability he is merely inviting one to get off and listen to his/her inner voice. This book reveals to us how solitude with love can mend heartbreaks and bring a sense of clarity in life. Instead of concluding that one is lonely, in 'Embracing Solitude,' this author demonstrates that it raises one without lying and being a part of something that matters to him.

Dhaval Birajdar

Dhaval Birajdar is a Mumbai-based academic, storyteller and educator, who instructs in Mechanical Engineering at D.J. Sanghvi College of Engineering and is a author of plot and emotion-based fiction. Mumbaii Experiment is his crime thriller, and a dark quick ride through a city full of horrifying murders, tensions and bloodshed. It has since conquered a number of good books including works in the Harry Potter series and its own organic readers are no doubt. A Knotty Affair by Birajdar is about the issue of class and emotional loss that a young man faces in the demanding college life.

The 3 Musketeers covers three lives on their own universe, which demonstrates ambition, strength, and connection in their lives.

Ashish Goyal

The author of the Guardians of Dharma is Ashish Goyal; it is a modern Indian fantasy with a blend of suspense and mystery, philosophy and coming of age. He intertwines contemporary story with ancient Indian wisdom and he considers dharma to be a dynamic force. He is a 20-year professional leadership accountant in the corporates of Mumbai, adds analysis into his stories, and is also well versed in Dharma. The Hidden Resonance, his first novel, narrates the story of four teenagers whose normal school life turns into silent and chilling surprise of the ancient knowledge locked in sound, symbolism and silence. The next sequel The Flame of Silence shifts the first one discovery to responsibility as the heroes struggle to discover the meanings of choice, control and consequences in a world that is increasingly getting bigger. The Shrimad Bhagavatam is not utilized as a source of tales in both novels but to apply its concepts to the real world.

Manya Jha

Manya Jha is an international speaker, author, and deep tech entrepreneur and founder of Morphedo, a developer of scaleable engineering solutions in aerospace and defence, medical devices, Edge AI and IoT. Recognised by Forbes India, including the Forbes 40 Under 40 and the Forbes India Small Business Summit, she has also been named an Influential Leader by AACSB in 2025.

The Lonely Lions, What Happens In Between, and Decoding Sense are the works by Manya. The Lonely Lions argues retrospectively on the nature of entrepreneurship as an internalized experience, which is a solitude that is decided by responsibility, loneliness, and will. What Happens In Between is about transitional, pausing and staying strong and Decoding Sense is about falling out of routine thinking and what can be done to regain clarity.

Dr. Sushant Rajput

Dr. Sushant Rajput is the inaugural generation of the boardroom-book influenced authors. He is also a Vice President of eClerx Services Ltd. with a career of more than 20 years in the corporate world to write and mentor. He has switched Computer Science and Investment Banking Operations to business transformation and writing books. I Wish Someone Told Me This Before My First Job have been a bestselling book on Amazon. Second is Mindful Momentum, followed by Courage Within, which was written by the readers who are aiming at complexity, not comfort. Honoured with recognitions including a thought-leadership award from the University of Oxford and Asia-level excellence awards, and featured by Forbes India, Fortune India, and India Today, his voice blends reflection with precision, guiding growth today globally consistently.

Dr. Ruupa Rao

Psychologist, executive coach and author Ruupa Rao has her books, which bring about an extreme social scrutiny of psychology. Her books are about identity, belief, perception, and their influencing effects on human behaviour. She is an author of four valuable books. One of the psychological questions that are posed in Identity Matrix about how information, beliefs, culture, and media affect Identity gives a couple of ways on how the reader can prevent being manipulated, how to build conscious wisdom. Lies We Tell Ourselves is a psychological piece of study of cognitive distortion or the subconscious perceptions influencing our daily decisions. Manasigondu Kaigannadi is a kannada non-fiction informative psychology book that describes psychological development, from childhood to adulthood, dealing with prejudice, conditioning, dreams, and emotional influence. The misuse of superstition is revealed in her Kannada novel Psycho Horror where the ten terrifying stories are linked with a mental psychological state in what is otherwise a novel based on true events.

Dr. Deepa Didddi

Dr. Deepa Didddi is an academic, behavioural instructor and a writer who has more than three decades of experience in the preeminent design of transformative learning spaces in the leading institutions in India. She is a PhD in Women Studies and a Gold Medalist in English. Her work is a combination of communication, emotional intelligence, and inner well-being. The most recentr book, Staying Connected: Reaching for the Stars: 5 Effective Approaches to an Organised, Peaceful Life, is her typical voice as a facilitator, instead of a traditional teacher. The book also discusses the ways in which external mess usually reflects internal chaos using gentle storytelling and carefully designed systems to reflect and find nurturing ideas on how to live consciously, aligned and emotionally stable.

The style of writing of Dr. Didddi is familiar and recognised to be interlaced personal experience and guided reflection, responding to the profound human desire of finding calmness, connection and meaning in a world that is growing more chaotic.

Dr. Pramod Sharma

Dr. Pramod Sharma never doubted that youth empowerment with the appropriate skills and attitude can change lives and industries. Academically, he has earned a PhD in employee retention in hospitality industry that has profoundly influenced his thoughts regarding people, performance, and sustainability of workforce in the long term. Throughout their years of operation, Dr.Pramod have been involved in education, knowledge transfer and skill development to a significant extent with a variety of skill based programs and also run various IT and hospitality programs in order to produce a workforce that is industry ready. He got a chance to express his views with regards to the youth, skills and the hospitality as an expert voice on the national television news channels.

Based on this experience, he authored Why to be a Hospitality Professional as a way of demonstrating hospitality as a dignified profession of service and entrepreneurship to students, professionals and other would-be entrepreneurs in the business.

Varun Singh

Varun Singh is the award-winning global mobility leader and the author of RAAH: A New Path, the book that redefines the concept of migration as a decision process driven by hope, clarity, and moral decision. Introduced in the presence of Chetan Bhagat, RAAH is not restricted to migration stories, but it brings about real life stories of hope and change. The book provides insight on how lawful and trust-driven migration can be a source of opportunity instead of an escape. Varun is a Founder and the Managing Director of XIPHIAS Immigration, and a Fellow of the Investment Migration Council, Switzerland. His writing is based on the people as he has written about more than six thousand families and has had upwards of sixteen years of experience and guidance in the migration journey.

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Naresh Raghani Madhukar

Naresh Raghani Madhukar is an Indian writer who is best known for his contribution to the Indian science fiction that relies heavily on Hindu mythology. Being of literary stock, writing runs through generations of his family. There are over a dozen books written by his grandmother. In his famous series Chiranjeevi Bhava, such as Ek Vaigyanik Khoj and A Scientific Saga, Madhukar has delved into DNA and lineage of the seven Chiranjeevis and modernized the ancient Hindu Devatas with science in a manner that is easily understandable by young readers. The novels intersect relative mythology and contemporary enquiries, cultural awareness by telling stories. He has authored poetry books as well including Kambakht Tere Pyaar Mein and Jazbaatnama. Madhukar was honoured as Best Fiction Writer by Chetan Bhagat in Mumbai.