BHUBANESWAR: Three Odia writers have been selected for the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Awards for the year 2021.
President of Odisha Sahitya Akademi and poet Hrushikesh Mallick will receive the Sahitya Akademi Award for his book ‘Sarijaithiba Opera’. Similarly, Digaraj Brahma will receive the Bal Sahitya Puraskar for his poetry book ‘Geeta Kahe Matira Katha’ and young writer Debabrata Das has been chosen for the Yuva Puraskar for his book of short stories ‘Sparsha Ebam Anyanya Galpa’.
An announcement in this regard was made by the Central Sahitya Akademi at New Delhi on Thursday. The Sahitya Akademi award was recommended by a jury of three members in Odia language each in all the three categories.
Mallick who was appointed the president of Odisha Sahitya Akademi in May this year, has nearly 40 books to his credit. This includes 12 books on poetry, two story collections and 10 books on literary criticism. His poems have been translated into English, Hindi and Bengali languages. Earlier in 2016, he had won the Sarala Puraskar for his book ‘Jeje Dekhi Nathiba Bharat’.
“Sarijaithiba Opera is a book of poetry where the poems are inspired by events from daily life. Every person experiences many things every day. I have picked up a few events and written poems on them”, he said. Mallick is awaiting release of his next book that is based on a female character of Ramayana. “I had written this book during the Covid lockdown and it will be released very soon”, he said.