Keekli Bureau, 25th February, 2020
Former Union Minister and English writer Shashi Tharoor and noted Hindi poet and playwright Nand Kishore Acharya were among the 24 writers who received Sahitya Akademi award. The awards were presented by Akademi president Chandrashekhar Kambar and noted lyricist and film director Gulzar in a dignified ceremony held in the capital’s Kamani auditorium.
Dogri author Om Sharma “Jandrayadi” was given the award posthumously at the ceremony. Mr Tharoor, Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram, bagged the prize for his book “An Era of Darkness” while Mr Acharya was given the award for his poetry collection “Chheeltae Hue Apne Ko”.
The award was given to Urdu critic Shafe Kidwai for his critical book “Savane Sarhad”. Maithili poet Kumar Manish Arvind bagged the honour for his collection of poetry “Jingi Auriyon Karait”. Each winner will receive Rs one lakh, a citation and insignia. The other award winners were Penna Madhusudan for Sanskrit, Abdul Ahad Hajini for Kashmiri, Kirpal Kazak for Punjabi, Chinmay Guha for Bengali, Anuradha Patil for Marathi, Cho Dharman for Tamil, Madhusudan Nair for Malayalam, Vijaya for Malayalam, Ratilal Borisagar for Gujarati and Jai Shri Goswami Mahant for Assamese.
