HYDERABAD: Satya Dash, a 29-year old poet and artist based in Bangalore, has been conferred with the 12th Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize. The poet grew up in Cuttack, Odisha and was selected from a field of 180 contestants from across the country by a jury consisting of the well-known poet and author, Mamang Dai, and two faculty members from the Department of English, the University of Hyderabad. His poems have appeared in several literary magazines like Waxwing, Wildness, Redivider, Passages North, The Journal, The Florida Review, Prelude, The Cortland Review, Hobart, Poetry@Sangam, among others. Other than having a degree in Electronics from BITS Pilani-Goa, he has also does commentary on cricket.
Recognised as a significant award for creative writing in India, the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize was instituted by the Hyderabad-based Srinivas Rayaprol Literary Trust to recognise excellence in poetry written in English by poets in the age group of 20-40 years. The prize is jointly administered by the Department of English, the University of Hyderabad.
The inaugural prize was awarded in 2009 to Aditi Machado and, subsequently, to Hemant Mohapatra (2010), Aditi Rao (2011), Tushar Jain (2012), Mihir Vatsa (2013), and Ranjani Murali (2014), Aishwarya Iyer (2015), Goirick Brahmachari (2016), Debarshi Mitra (2017), Poorna Swami (2018), and Prashant Parvataneni (2019). Noted poets like Jeet Thayil, Sudeep Sen, Keki Daruwalla, and Gieve Patel have been associated with the prize as jury members. The award consists of a citation and a cash prize of `15,000 will be presented to the winner at a literary event to be held online soon.