The Sarasvati Book Award solicits scholarly nonfiction books published during 2022-2024 in the fields of goddess studies/women and mythology. Named for the Hindu goddess of learning and the creative arts, the award is given by the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology to honor outstanding scholarship and presentation. The award will be presented during ASWM’s 2025 conference in Tucson Arizona.
Submissions and book copies must be received by the Awards Committee no later than February 1, 2025. Books must be published in print, rather than only in e-book format. Nominations must come directly from the publisher; authors should contact their publishers to ask them to submit a work for this award. Each publisher may nominate one work published in 2022-2024. Anthologies and self-published books are not eligible for this award.
Publishers may contact submissions@womenandmyth.org .
Previous winners of the Sarasvati Award for Nonfiction:
2022: Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender, and Erotic Power by Judy Grahn (Nightboat Books)
2018: Sheela na gig: The Dark Goddess of Sacred Power by Starr Goode (Inner Traditions)
2016: The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor (Princeton)
2014: The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology and the Origins of European Dance by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (Norton)
2012: Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia by Miriam Robbins Dexter and Victor Mair (Cambria Press)
Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender, and Erotic Power
We are pleased to announce that Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender, and Erotic Power by Judy Grahn has won the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology’s Sarasvati Nonfiction Book Award. The award letter to Nightboat Books, which will be read at our symposium on April 10, reads as follows:
The clarity of Grahn’s prose, enlivened by flights of poesy, makes this a work of scholarly heft and intellectual precision a literary delight.
Grahn takes feminist, queer, and literary approaches to varied sacred narratives, eliciting the ethical vision implicit in each and restoring goddess/woman/womb to the rightful place of centrality and seat of power, whether revered or contested. The author also brings geographic, astronomical, and lexical considerations to bear on her interpretations, resulting in stunning revelations on virtually every page.
Eruptions of Inanna offers original insights on a spectrum of literary sources and associated cultural patterns. The book reveals something that generations of biblical scholars combing the Hebrew scriptures for Sumerian elements have failed to discover, namely, the profound indebtedness of the Book of Job to the hymns of Inanna in its moral premise, narrative frame, dialogic exchanges, and specific phrasing and theological formulations. Beyond this towering contribution, readers are rewarded with fresh perspectives on any material already familiar to them, such as the Gilgamesh epic, the Greek pantheon, Helen of Troy, and South Asian goddess traditions, as well as the titled Inanna. Those immersed in study of Inanna and the excellent scholarship already available will find in Eruptions of Inanna more majesty, lavish beauty, and all-encompassing power than previously envisioned as the book integrates the diverse and seemingly divergent aspects of Inanna into a cosmic whole.
While focusing on Near Eastern and Mediterranean materials, the inclusion of South Asian examples and cases further afield (Native American, African) gives the work a global sweep. The pressing ethical concern at the heart of the book is the conflictive value system of gender-based violence and oppression that now threatens life on the planet. Drawing on sacred stories spanning millennia, the author elicits an inclusive, cooperative worldview based on earthly, celestial, and human female bodily cycles of creation, transformation, and regeneration. The book steers us toward the goal of an equitable, compassionate world of collective harmony and flourishing.
We congratulate Nightboat Books on producing a beautiful book whose design allows the lapidary prose of the brilliant author to shine on its pages.
Judy Grahn
Judy Grahn is an internationally known poet, author, mythographer, and cultural theorist. Her works include seven books of nonfiction, two book-length poems, five poetry collections, a reader, and a novel. An early Gay activist who walked the first picket of the White House for Gay rights in 1965, she later founded Gay Women’s Liberation and the Women’s Press Collective. Her intention with writing is to replace obsolete philosophies with better ones.
Sarasvati Nonfiction Book Award submissions deadline has been extended: Dec. 31 2021
Sarasvati by Raja Ravi Varma
The Sarasvati Nonfiction Book Award solicits nonfiction books published in English during 2019-21 in the field of women and mythology. Named for the Hindu goddess of learning and the creative arts, the Sarasvati Award from the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM) honors scholarly work in the fields of goddess studies and women and mythology. Anthologies and self-published books are not eligible for consideration. Applications must be submitted by publisher and must be received by the ASWM Sarasvati Award Committee no later than December 31, 2021. The award will be presented during ASWM’s next biennial conference.
The ASWM Board of Directors is pleased to present the 2018 Sarasvati Award for nonfiction to Inner Traditions for this provocative and beautiful book. With over 150 illustrations, this book explores the archetype of the Dark Goddess in the form of female display figures. It examines a range of images of supernatural females like Sheela na gigs adorning medieval architecture.
The award letter reads in part:
This book advances the field of feminist mythological/Goddess studies, presenting both scholarly information and wonderful images to the reader. The inclusion of this large number of illustrations is essential in a work of this type, in order to convey the rich and diverse imagery of Sheela na gigs and displaying figures.
This book is very well-balanced in offering descriptions and lists of Sheelas along with scholarly explorations and an understanding of issues regarding their their deep meanings and mystery. Additionally, this book gives evidence of similar sacred display figures throughout the world: in Polynesia, in Africa, in India, in Europe, and in the Far East. It takes the reader from sacred display figures dating to the Upper Palaeolithic, to those from the Neolithic, to those from the Classical era, and finally those dating to the medieval era in Europe.
In short, we believe this book has great value in to interdisciplinary studies of myth and folklore. We would strongly recommend it as a resource to faculty, researchers, travelers, and general readers.
The author will be on hand to accept this award at our 2018 Conference in March.
The Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM)
Sarasvati Award for Nonfiction
The Sarasvati Book Award solicits nonfiction books published during 2015-2017 in the field of goddess studies/women and mythology. Named for the Hindu goddess of learning and the creative arts, the Sarasvati award from the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology (ASWM) honors creative work in the field of goddess and mythology studies. The award will be presented during ASWM’s biennial conference, Las Vegas, Nevada, 16-17 March 2018. Book submissions must be received by ASWM Sarasvati Award committee no later than 15 November 2017. Books must be submitted by publishers only. Anthologies and self-published books are not eligible for this award.
The 2017 deadline for submissions has now passed. Past winners of this prestigious award for the study of women and mythology include:
Miriam Robbins Dexter & Victor Mair and Cambria Press for Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia
Elizabeth Wayland Barber and W. W. Norton for The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology, and the Origins of European Dance
Adrienne Mayor and Princeton University Press for The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World
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