SAHITYA AKADEMI AWARD - AWARDS

News: Awards for words: On the Sahitya Akademi awards

 

What's in the news?

       Literary borders should be porous and the Sahitya Akademi awards, which have been honouring writers of 24 Indian languages down the years, should be seen in that light.

 

Key takeaways:

       This year the Akademi has picked nine books of poems, six novels, five short stories, three essays and one literary study in Dogri, Gujarati, Kashmiri, Manipuri, Odia, Punjabi, Rajasthani, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Assamese, Bodo, Bengali, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Santali and others.

 

Sahitya Akademi Award:

       It was established in 1954, is a literary honour.

       The award, which was established in 1954, consists of a plaque and a cash prize of Rs. 1,000,000.

       It is conferred by Sahitya Akademi which is India’s National Academy of Letters.

       The Sahitya Akademi Award prizes the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the major Indian languages recognised by the Akademi.

       After the Jnanpith award, the Sahitya Akademi award is the second-highest literary honour bestowed by the Indian Government.

       Akademi gives 24 awards annually to literary works in the languages it has recognized and an equal number of awards to literary translations from and into the languages of India.

 

Recognised Languages:

       The Sahitya Akademi has recognized English and Rajasthani as languages in which its curriculum can be executed, in addition to the 22 languages listed in the Indian Constitution.

 

Sahitya Akademi Award - Criteria for Choosing Awardee:

       The author must be an Indian National.

       A book or work that is eligible for the award must make a significant addition to the language and literature of the genre.

       When two or more works have similar worth, specific factors such as overall literary contribution and standing of authors will be considered when the prize is announced.

 

Other Sahitya Akademi Awards:

       Sahitya Akademi Bal Sahitya Puraskar is awarded to an author for his or her overall contribution to children's literature, and it is based on novels that were first published in the five years before the year of the award.

       The Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar honors novels written by authors under the age of 35.

 

Go back to basics:

Sahitya Akademi:

       It is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Culture, encouraging the preservation and promotion of languages, especially the unrecognized and tribal languages.

       The Sahitya Akademi Library is one of the largest multi-lingual libraries in India, with a rich collection of books on literature and allied subjects.

       It publishes two bi-monthly literary journals: Indian Literature in English and Samkaleen Bharatiya Sahitya in Hindi.