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 |