The list of Sahitya Akademi (India’s National Academy of Letters) Award winners for writing in English.
| No. | Year | Winner | Work | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1960 | R. K. Narayan | The Guide | Novel |
| 2 | 1963 | Raja Rao | The Serpent and the Rope | Novel |
| 3 | 1965 | Verrier Elwin | The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin | Autobiography |
| 4 | 1967 | Bhabani Bhattacharya | Shadow from Ladakh | Novel |
| 5 | 1969 | Niharranjan Ray | An Artist in Life | Study |
| 6 | 1971 | Mulk Raj Anand | Morning Face | Novel |
| 7 | 1975 | Nirad C. Chaudhuri | Scholar Extraordinary | Biography |
| 8 | 1976 | S. Gopal | Jawaharlal Nehru | Biography |
| 9 | 1977 | Chaman Nahal | Azadi | Novel |
| 10 | 1978 | Anita Desai | Fire on the Mountain | Novel |
| 11 | 1979 | Rama Mehta | Inside the Haveli | Novel |
| 12 | 1980 | K.R. Srinivasa Iyengar | On the Mother | Biography |
| 13 | 1981 | Jayanta Mahapatra | Relationship | Poetry |
| 14 | 1982 | Arun Joshi | The Last Labyrinth | Novel |
| 15 | 1983 | Nissim Ezekiel | Later-Day Psalms | Poetry |
| 16 | 1984 | Keki N. Daruwalla | The Keeper of the Dead | Poetry |
| 17 | 1985 | Kamala Das | Collected Poems | Poetry |
| 18 | 1986 | Nayantara Sahgal | Rich Like Us | Novel |
| 19 | 1987 | Shiv K. Kumar | Trapfalls in the Sky | Poetry |
| 20 | 1988 | Vikram Seth | The Golden Gate | Novel in verse |
| 21 | 1989 | Amitav Ghosh | The Shadow Lines | Novel |
| 22 | 1990 | Shashi Deshpande | That Long Silence | Novel |
| 23 | 1991 | I. Allan Sealy | The Trotter-Nama | Novel |
| 24 | 1992 | Ruskin Bond | Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra | Short Stories |
| 25 | 1993 | G.N. Devy | After Amnesia: Tradition and Change in Indian Literary Criticism | Criticism |
| 26 | 1994 | Dom Moraes | Serendip | Poetry |
| 27 | 1996 | Sunetra Gupta | Memories of Rain | Criticism |
| 28 | 1998 | Mahesh Dattani | Final Solutions and Other Plays | Plays |
| 29 | 1999 | A. K. Ramanujan | The Collected Poems of A. K. Ramanujan | Poetry |
| 30 | 2000 | Kiran Nagarkar | Cuckold | Novel |
| 31 | 2001 | Rajmohan Gandhi | Rajaji : A Life | Biography |
| 32 | 2002 | Amit Chaudhuri | A New World | Novel |
| 33 | 2003 | Meenakshi Mukherjee | The Perishable Empire: Essays On Indian Writing In English | Essays |
| 34 | 2004 | Upamanyu Chatterjee | The Mammaries of the Welfare State | Novel |
| 35 | 2006 | Rupa Bajwa | The Sari Shop | Novel |
| 36 | 2007 | Malathi Rao | Disorderly Women | Novel |
| 37 | 2009 | Chaturvedi Badrinath | Mahabharata: An Inquiry into the Human Condition | Criticism |
| 38 | 2010 | Esther David | The Book of Rachel | Novel |
| 39 | 2011 | Ramachandra Guha | India After Gandhi | Historical Narrative |
| 40 | 2012 | Jeet Thayil | These Errors are Correct | Poetry |
| 41 | 2013 | Temsula Ao | Laburnum For My Head | Short Stories |
| 42 | 2014 | Adil Jussawalla | Trying to Say Goodbye | Poetry |
| 43 | 2015 | Cyrus Mistry | Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer | Novel |
| 44 | 2016 | Jerry Pinto | Em and the Big Hoom | Novel |
| 45 | 2017 | Mamang Dai | The Black Hill | Novel |
| 46 | 2018 | Anees Salim | The Blind Lady’s Descendants | Novel |
| 47 | 2019 | Shashi Tharoor | An Era of Darkness | Novel |
| 48 | 2020 | Arundhati Subramaniam | When God is a Traveller | Poetry |
| 49 | 2021 | Namita Gokhale | Things to Leave Behind | Novel |
| 50 | 2022 | Anuradha Roy | All the Lives We Never Lived | Novel |
| 51 | 2023 | Neelum Saran Gour | Requiem in Raga Janki | Novel |
| 52 | 2024 | Easterine Kire | Spirit Nights | Novel |