Sahitya Akademi announces awards for 2015

Sahitya Akademi Awards 2015 winners in 23 languages have been announced recently. Among the winning books are six poetry collections, four novels and six books of short stories, besides two books each of essays and criticism. The awards were recommended by distinguished jury members representing 23 Indian languages and approved by the Executive Board of the Akademi, under the chairmanship of Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari, president, Sahitya Akademi. The award in Bengali is to be announced at a later date.

Famous poets honoured with the award for the year 2015 are Brajendra Kumar Brahma (Bodo), Dhian Singh (Dogri), Ramdarash Mishra (Hindi), KV Tirumalesh (Kannada), Kshetri Rajan (Manipuri) and Ram Shankar Awasthi (Sanskrit). Six writers awarded for their short stories are Kula Saikia (Assamese), Man Mohan Jha (Maithili), Gupta Pradhan(Nepali), Bibhuti Pattanaik (Odia), Maya Rahi (Sindhi) and Volga (Telugu). The award winning novelists are Cyrus Mistry (English), KR Meera (Malayalam), Jaswinder Singh (Punjabi), and Madhu Acharya ‘Ashawadi’ (Rajasthani).

Rasik Shah (Gujarati) and A Madhavan (Tamil) have been awarded for their essays; Uday Bhembre (Konkani) and Rabilal Tudu (Santhali) for their plays; Bashir Bhadarwahi (Kashmiri) and Shamim Tariq (Urdu) for their books on criticism and Arun Khopkar (Marathi) for his book on memoires are among those honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Awards 2015.

The award in the form of an engraved plaque, a shawl and a cheque of one lakh rupees will be presented to the writers at a function on February 16, 2016 during Festival of Letters, festival of letters organized by Sahitya Akademi.