Sahitya Akademi awards announced

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, DEC. 22. The Sahitya Akademi awards for all languages except Sanskrit were announced here today. The awards, each carrying a cash component of Rs. 25,000, will be given away at a function to be held here on February 20 next year.

While the award for Sanskrit will be announced at a later date, the award for Assamese has gone to Apurba Sarma's collection of short stories ``Baghe Tapur Rati Aru Anyanya Kahini.'' Joy Goswami's poetic work ``Pagli Tomar Sange'' has bagged the Bengali award. The Dogri award has gone to another collection of short stories - late Bandhu Sharma's ``Meel Patthar''.

Kiran Nagarkar's novel ``Cuckold'' bagged the award in the English category; Vinesh Antani's novel ``Dhundhabhari Khin'' the Gujarati award; Mangalesh Dabral's poetic work ``Hum Jo Dekhte Hain,'' the Hindi award; late Shantinath Desai's novel ``Om Namo'' the Kannada award; Hari Krishna Kaul's collection of short stories ``Yath Raaz Daanay'' the Kashmiri award; Pandurang Bhangui's poetic work ``Champhel'li Sanj'' the Konkani award; and Ramanand Renu's ``Katek Raas Baat'' the Maithili award.

As for Malayalam, the award went to R. Ramachandran's poetic work ``R. Ramachandrante Kavithakal'' while the Manipuri award went to a collection of short stories - L. Premchand's ``Eemagi Phanek Machet.'' N.D. Mahanor's poetic work ``Panzad'' got the Marathi award, Ramlal Adhikari's essays ``Nisansmaran'' the Nepali award, Pratibha Ray's collection of short stories ``Ullanghan'' the Oriya award and Waryam Singh Sandhu's short stories ``Chauthi Koot'' the Punjabi award.

``Kankoo Kabandh'', Jyotipunj's play, won the award in the category reserved for Rajasthani literary works while the Sindhi award went to Param Abichandani's critique ``Taka Tora''. Similarly, the Tamil award went to another critique ``Vimarsanangal Mathipuraikal Baetigal'' by T. G. Sivasankaran. The Telugu award went to ``Kallani Nidra Ponivvanu'', a poetic work by N. Gopi. The Urdu award also went to another collection of verse - Ambar Bahraichi's ``Sookhi Tahni Par Hariyal''.

The awards were decided as per the recommendations of the three- member jury that had been set up for each language category. All awarded texts have been first published between January 1, 1994, and December 31, 1998.

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