Sahitya Akademi Awards announced, Anuradha Roy among 23 winners

The awards in 23 languages included seven books of poetry, six of novel, two of short stories, three dramas, two literary criticism and one each of autobiographical essays, collection of articles and literary history

Author Anuradha Roy. File

Tamil author M. Rajendran, Telugu writer Madhuranthakam Narendra and Sanskrit Poet Janardan Prasad Pandey ‘Mani’ were among 23 litterateurs awarded the Sahitya Akademi Awards for 2022. The Bhasha Samman was awarded to Udaya Nath Jha for his valuable contribution to the field of classical and medieval literature in the eastern region.

Seventeen books were selected for the translation awards which included Yaad Vashem by N. Nallathambi and Akupacha Kavithalu by Varala Anand.

The awards in 23 languages included seven books of poetry, six of novel, two of short stories, three dramas, two literary criticism and one each of autobiographical essays, collection of articles and literary history.

The awards, recommended by distinguished jury members were approved by the Executive Board of the Sahitya Akademi which met on Thursday under its President Chandrashekhar Kambar.

In Assamese language, Manoj Kumar Goswami won the award for his collection of short stories Bhool Satya; Anuradha Roy won in English language for her novel All the Lives we never lived; Gulam Mohammad Shaikh won in Gujarati for Gher Jatan, a collection of autobiographical essays, while Mr. Rajendran won in Tamil for his novel Kala Pani.

Other languages

Winners in other languages were: Maya Anil Kharangate (Konkani), Praveen Dashrath Bandekar (Marathi),  Mr. Madhuranthakam Narendra (Telugu), Anis Asnfa (Urdu), Veena Gupta (Dogri), Kamal Ranga (Rajasthani), K.B. Nepali (Nepali), Farooq Fayaz (Kashmiri) and Rashmi Choudhury (Bodo).

M. Thomas Mathew won the award in Malayalam for his literary criticism Ashaante Seethayanam, while Mudnakudu Chinnaswamy won in Kannada for collection of articles Bahutvada Bhaarata mattu Bouddha Taatvikate.

The award for the Bengali language would be announced later.

The Sahitya Akademi ‘Yuva Praskar’ for those under 35 years was awarded to Pawan Nalat for his Marathi Poetry collection Mi Sandarbha Pokharatoy.

Bal Sahitya Puraskar

The Bal Sahitya Puraskar has been given in Santhali to Ganesh Marandi for his book Hapan Mai.

The books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by a jury of three members each in the languages concerned. 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 (between  January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2020).