Tharoor, Kishore, Kidwai to get Sahitya Akademi

New Delhi: The national academy of letters announced the names of Congress leader and author Shashi Tharoor and playwright Nand Kishore Acharya for the Sahitya Akademi Award 2019. In all, 23 writers will be bestowed with the prestigious award at a ceremony next month.  

While Mr Tharoor won the award for his book An Era of Darkness in English, Acharya will receive the recognition for his book of Hindi poetry, Chheelatey Hue Apne Ko. “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 Chandrashekhar Kambar, president, Sahitya Akademi, K. Sreenivasarao, secretary of the Akademi, said in a statement. The winners will receive an engraved copper plate and Rs 1 lakh  cash prize at a special function on February 25, 2020 in Delhi.

Seven poets will be given the award — Phukan Ch. Basumatary (Bodo), Nand Kishore Acharya (Hindi), Niba A. Khandekar (Konkani), Kumar Manish Arvind (Maithili), V.Madhusoodanan Nair (Malayalam), Anuradha Patil (Marathi), and Penna Madhusudan (Sanskrit).

Shashi Tharoor (English), Vijaya (Kannada) and Shafey Kidwai (Urdu) have won the award for their work on creative non-fiction, autobiography and biography respectively.

Joysree Goswami Mahanta (Assamese), L.Birmangol Singh (Manipuri), Cho Dharman (Tamil) and Bandi Narayan Swami (Telugu) will receive the award for their novels. Six authors will get the recognition in short story category — Abdul Ahad Hajini (Kashmiri), Tarun Kanti Mishra (Odia), Kripal Kazak (Punjabi), Ramswaroop Kisan (Rajasthani), Kali Charan Hembram (Santali), and Ishwar Moorjani (Sindhi).

Three books of essay by Chinmoy Guha (Bengali), Om Sharma Jandriari (Dogri), and Ratilal Borisagar (Gujarati) were also named for the prestigious award.