Sahitya Akademi Awards announced in 23 Indian languages

The books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by a Jury of three members in the concerned languages in accordance with the procedure laid down for the purpose.

Sahitya Akademi announced its annual Sahitya Akademi Awards in 23 languages today. Seven books of poetry, four of the novel, six of short stories, three of essays and one each of non-fiction, autobiography and biography have won the Sahitya Akademi Awards 2019.​

The Awards were recommended by distinguished Jury members representing 23 Indian languages and approved by the Executive Board of the Sahitya Akademi which met today under the Chairmanship of Dr. Chandrashekhar Kambar, President, Sahitya Akademi. 

Seven books of poetry were awarded to Dr. Phukan Ch. Basumatary (Bodo), Dr. Nand Kishore Acharya (Hindi), Sri Nilba A. Khandekar (Konkani), Sri Kumar Manish Arvind (Maithili), Sri V. Madhusoodanan Nair (Malayalam), Smt. Anuradha Patil (Marathi) and Prof. Penna Madhusudan(Sanskrit).  

Four novels were awarded to Dr. Joysree Goswami Mahanta (Assamese), Sri L. Birmangol Singh (Beryl Thanga) (Manipuri), Sri Cho. Dharman (Tamil) and Sri Bandi Narayana Swamy (Telugu). 

Six books of short stories were awarded to Sri Abdul Ahad Hajini (Kashmiri), Sri Tarun Kanti Mishra(Odia), Sri Kirpal Kazak (Punjabi), Sri Ram sawroop Kisan (Rajasthani), Sri Kali Charan Hembram(Santali) and Sri Ishwar Moorjani (Sindhi). 

Dr. Shashi Tharoor (English), Dr. Vijaya(Kannada) and Prof. Shafey Kidwai (Urdu) have won for each of their works on creative non-fiction, autobiography, and biography respectively. Three books of essays were awarded to Dr. Chinmoy Guha(Bengali), Sri Om Sharma Jandriari (Dogri) and Sri Ratilal Borisagar (Gujarati).​​​​

The books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by a Jury of three members in the concerned languages in accordance with the procedure laid down for the purpose.  According to the procedure, the Executive Board declared the Awards on the basis of unanimous selections made by the Jurors or selection made on the basis of majority vote.  The Awards relate to books first published during the five years immediately preceding the year of Award (i.e. between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2017).   

The Award in the form of a casket containing an engraved copper-plaque, a shawl and an amount of Rs. 1,00,000/- towards cash content will be presented to the authors of these books at a special function to be held on 25 February 2020 at New Delhi during the Festival of Letters organized by Sahitya Akademi. 

(With Inputs from PIB)