Politician-writer Shashi Tharoor and playwright Nand Kishore Acharya are among 23 writers who will be bestowed with the Sahitya Akademi Award 2019. The national academy of letters announced the names of the winners on Wednesday, 18 December. Tharoor has won this honour for his non-fiction novel An Era of Darkness, and Acharya for his book of Hindi poetry, Chheelatey Hue Apne Ko. The winners will be felicitated in a ceremony on 25 February, 2020 in Delhi.
Seven poets will receive the Sahitya Akademi Award: Phukan Ch. Basumatary (Bodo), Nand Kishore Acharya (Hindi), Niba A Khandekar (Konkani), Kumar Manish Arvind (Maithili), V Madhusoodanan Nair (Malayalam), Anuradha Patil (Marathi), and Penna Madhusudan (Sanskrit).
Joysree Goswami Mahanta (Assamese), L Birmangol Singh (Manipuri), Cho Dharman (Tamil) and Bandi Narayan Swami (Telugu) will receive the award for their novels.
Six authors will be recognised in short story category: Abdul Ahad Hajini (Kashmiri), Tarun Kanti Mishra (Odia), Kripal Kazak (Punjabi), Ramswaroop Kisan (Rajasthani), Kali Charan Hembram (Santali), and Ishwar Moorjani (Sindhi).
Shashi Tharoor (English), Vijaya (Kannada) and Shafey Kidwai (Urdu) have won the award for their work on creative non-fiction, autobiography and biography respectively.
Three books of essays by Chinmoy Guha (Bengali), Om Sharma Jandriari (Dogri), and Ratilal Borisagar (Gujarati) have also been named for the honour.
(With inputs from PTI)
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