Novelist Gopalakrishna Pai (Kannada) and eminent historian Ramachandra Guha (English) are among those who have won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award this year.
Eight books of poetry, seven novels, three essays, one each of narrative history, biography, play and short stories won the award this year.
Recommended by jury members representing 23 Indian languages, the awards were approved by the Executive Board of the Akademi which met in the capital on Wednesday under the chairmanship of Akademi president Sunil Gangopadhyay.
Poets honoured with the award are: (late) Kabin Phukan (Assamese), Manindra Gupta (Bengali), Premananda Mosahari (Bodo), Naseem Shafaie (Kashmiri), Melvyn Rodrigues (Konkani), Harekrishna Satapathy (Sanskrit), Aditya Kumar Mandi (Santali) and Khaleel Mamoon (Urdu).
Other novelists who won the award are: Kashinath Singh (Hindi), Kshetri Bira (Manipuri), Kalpanakumari Devi (Odia), Baldev Singh (Punjabi) and Atul Kanakk (Rajasthani).
Lalit Magotra (Dogri), Grace (Marathi) and Samala Sadasiva (Telugu) received the award for their books on essays.
Mr. Guha for his narrative history, Mohan Parmar (Gujarati) for his short stories, M.K. Sanu (Malayalam) for his biography and Mohan Gehani (Sindhi) for his book on plays have been honoured.
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.
