Tata Literature Fest to Honour Shanta Gokhale, K Satchidanandan

Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest will be held from 14-17 November in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

(Left) Poet K Satchidanandan & (right) Writer Shanta Gokhale.

(Photo: Wikipedia/Altered by The Quint)

Writer Shanta Gokhale will be honoured with the Tata Literature Lifetime Achievement award 2019, while poet K Satchidanandan will receive the Poet Laureate award for their work which has made a significant impact in the Indian literary field.

Recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, Gokhale is a multihyphenate personality. She recently published her memoirs, “One Foot on the Ground: A Life Told Through the Body”.

"It was the strangest feeling to know that, while you were enclosed in your own world, writing and translating – not always for money or even for publication, but out of an inner compulsion and for your own pleasure – you were actually making sense to others whose opinion you held in high esteem. What a happy thought that was. And how humbling," Gokhale said in a statement.

Satchidanandan has represented the country at several literary meetings overseas and has headed several national literary institutions.

He is the recipient of numerous national and international awards, including the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2012.

Satchidanandan said it is a privilege to be honoured with the award.

"That I am a poet who writes poetry originally only in my mother tongue, Malayalam - though a good part of the oeuvre is now available in English and quite a few other Indian and foreign languages - adds to the joy of this national recognition which tends to elude, or comes late to, such poets..." he said.

Gokhale will be presented with the award on 17 November, while Satchidanandan will be honoured on 14 November.

Festival founder and director, Anil Dharker said, "We are honoured and privileged that on the occasion of our 10th anniversary, Indian literary greats Shanta Gokhale and K Satchidanandan have accepted our awards and will be gracing Tata Literature Live! Mumbai Litfest with their presence."

Tata Literature Live! The Mumbai LitFest will be held from 14-17 November.