PATNA: Politician-writer M Veerappa Moily, poets Arundhathi Subramaniam and Anamika are among the twenty writers who will be conferred with the Sahitya Akademi Award 2020.
This annual Sahitya Akademi Award has been announced for India’s 20 regional languages including Hindi, Maithali, Urdu and others.
According to an official communication of the Akademi, the seven books of poetry, four books of novel, five books of short stories, two plays one each of Memoirs and Epic poetry have won the awards.
The official statement said that awards in Malayalam, Nepali, Odia and Rajasthani will be announced at a later date by the Akademi.
Kamal Kant Jha of Darbhanga bagged the award for his short story titled 'Gachha Roosal Achhi’ on the importance of plantation in Maithili, while Anamika from Muzaffarpur won in poetry in Hindi titled ‘Tokri Mein Digant Their
Gatha'
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar congratulated Jha and Anamika for their outstanding literary creations that have brought laurel to the state.
Jha, addressing the media said, "it is an honour for all who work with literary creation with patience. Creativity never goes unacknowledged".
Other winners are Harish Meenakshi (Gujarati), Anamika (Hindi), RS Bhaskar (Konkani), Irungbam Deven (Manipuri), Rupchand Hansda (Santali), and Nikhileswar (Telugu). Nanda Khare (Marathi), Maheshchandra Sharma Gautam (Sanskrit), Imaiyam (Tamil) and Sri Hussain-ul-Haque were named as winners for their novels.
Apurba Kumar Saikia (Assamese), (late) Dharanidhar Owari (Bodo), (late) Hiday Koul Bharti (Kashmiri) and Gurdev Singh Rupana (Punjab) have received the award for short stories. The Akademi has named Gian Singh (Dogri) and Jetho Lalwani (Sindhi) the winners for their plays, while Shankar (Mani Shankar Mukhopadhyay) in (Bengali) received the award for a memoir.