English author Neelum Saran Gaur, Hindi writer Sanjeev among recipients of Sahitya Akademi Awards

New Delhi: English writer Neelum Saran Gaur and Hindi novelist Sanjeev are among the 24 recipients of Sahitya Akademi Awards 2023, the organisation announced on Wednesday.

The awards, recommended by jury members in 24 Indian languages, were approved by the executive board of the Sahitya Akademi that met on Wednesday under the chairmanship of its president Madhav Kaushik, the academy of letters said in a statement.

The list includes nine books of poetry, six novels, five of short stories, three essays and one literary study.

Sanjeev for his novel Mujhe Pehchaano and Gaur for her book Requiem in Raga Janki have been selected for the prestigious award, it said.

Sadiqua Nawab Saher will receive the award for her book Rajdev Ki Amrai in Urdu, while Swarnjit Savi has been selected for his book of poetry Mann Di Chip in Punjabi.

Other recipients of the awards in poetry include Vijay Verma (Dogri), Vinod Joshi (Gujarati), Manshoor Banihali (Kashmiri), Sorokkhaibam Gambhini (Manipuri), Ashutosh Parida (Odia), Gaje Singh Rajpurohit (Rajasthani), Arun Ranjan Mishra (Sanskrit) and Vinod Asudani (Sindhi).

Apart from Gaur, Sanjeev and Saher, writers such as Swapnamay Chakrabarti (Bengali), Krushnat Khot (Marathi), and Rajasekaran Devibharathi (Tamil) have been awarded for their novels.

Short stories by Pranavjyoti Deka (Assamese), Nandeswar Daiman (Bodo), Prakash S Parienkar (Konkani), Taraceen Baskey (Turia Chand Baskey) (Santali) and T Patanjali Sastry (Telugu) got their respective writers the award.

Lakshmisha Tolpadi (Kannada), Basukinath Jha (Maithili) and Judhabir Rana (Nepali) will receive the prize for their essays, while EV Ramakrishnan will be awarded for his literary study in Malayalam.

The awards are selected on the basis of unanimous selections made by the jurors or selection made on the basis of majority vote.

The awards relate to books first published during the five years immediately preceding the year of award, i.e. between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2021.

The authors and poets will receive the award in the form of a casket containing an engraved copper-plaque, a shawl and an amount of Rs 1 lakh at a ceremony on March 12 next year at Kamani Auditorium.