BHUBANESWAR: Writer Monalisa Jena has been selected for the Central Sahitya Akademi Award-2016 for Translation for her work ‘Asirbadara Ranga’. The book is translation of Assamese novel written by Arun Sharma. This was announced by the Central Sahitya Akademi on Tuesday.
Jena, who has translated several books from English to Odia, had got the State Sahitya Akademi Award in 2007 for another Assamese translation ‘Astaraga’.
She has edited and translated 16 contemporary Odia short stories into English that has been published in a book titled ‘Dasuram’s Script’.
Jena said though translation in Odia literature has picked up pace, the work is happening at individual level. “The Government should intervene and make translation a movement for good literary works to reach out to a larger audience,” said Jena who has been writing for over two decades.
The writer has published around 17 books which include ‘Indramalatira Shoka’, ‘E Sabu Dhrubamuhurta’ and ‘Nisarga Dhwani’. At present, she is translating poems by Girija Kumar Baliarsingh.