Sahitya Akademi announces Annual awards, poet Arundhathi Subramaniam wins big

New Delhi, March 13: National Academy of Letters has announced the names for the “Sahitya Akademi Award 2020" during the opening of the annual “Festival of Letters” event. According to the list, a total of 20 writers to be conferred with the Sahitya Akademi Award 2020.

 

The list includes seven books of poetry, four novels, five short stories, two plays, and one each of memoirs and epic poetry in 20 Indian languages. The awards for Malayalam, Nepali, Odia, and Rajasthani languages will be announced at a later date, the Akademi said in a statement.

 

Politician-writer M Veerappa Moily, poet Arundhathi Subramaniam is among 20 writers who will be bestowed with the Sahitya Akademi Award 2020. Announcing the awards, the Akademi said that Subramaniam has won the award for her poetry collection 'When God is a Traveller' (English) while Moily for his poetry 'Sri Bahubali Ahimsadigvijayam' (Kannada).

 

Apart from them, the “Poetry Category” award was also bestowed upon Harish Meenakshi (Gujarati), RS Bhaskar (Konkani), Anamika (Hindi), Irungbam Deven (Manipuri), Nikhileshwar (Telugu), and Rupchand Hansda (Santali).

 

 

 

In the “Novel Category” Imaiyam (Tamil), Nanda Khare (Marathi), Mahesh Chandra Sharma Gautam (Sanskrit), and Sri Hussain-ul-Haque have been named as the winner. While, Apurba Kumar Saikia (Assamese), Hiday Koul Bharti (Kashmiri), Dharanidhar Owari (Bodo), Gurdev Singh Rupana (Punjab), and Kamakant Jha (Maithili) have won the award for short stories.

 

These books were selected following the recommendations made by a jury of three members of the concerned languages. They made their final decision in accordance with the procedure which was set down for this purpose. Under it, the Executive Board declared the Awards based on unanimous selections made by jurors or selection made by the majority vote.

 

"According to the procedure, the Executive Board declared the Awards based on unanimous selections made by the jurors or selection made based on the majority vote. The awards relate to books first published during the five years immediately preceding the year of the award (ie. between January 1, 2014, and December 31, 2018)," the Akademi said.

 

The award is conferred to the most outstanding books of literary merit which is published in any 24 major Indian languages including Hindi, English, and other 22 languages of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. The award includes a casket comprising of an engraved copper plaque, a shawl, and an amount of Rs 1,00,000.

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