Gulzar among Sahitya Akademi Award winners

Noted Urdu lyricist and author Gulzar, Tamil writer S Balasubramanian and Marathi playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar are among the 22 litterateurs selected for this year's Sahitya Akademi awards, which were announced in New Delhi on Saturday.

The executive board of the Akademi, which met under the chairmanship of its president Ramakant Rath, approved selection of 22 books, chosen on the basis of recommendations made by a jury of three members in the concerned languages, its secretary K Satchidananadan said in a release.

The award in the form of a casket containing an engraved copper plaque and a cheque for Rs 40,000 will be presented on February 17.

The board also selected 17 translators, including Krishan Mohan in Hindi, for the Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation, which carries an amount of Rs 15,000.

While Gulzar has been selected for his collection of Urdu short stories Dhuan [Smoke], Balasubramanian has been chosen for his poetry collection Oru Giraamattu Nadi [River in a Village] and Elkunchwar has been selected for Marathi Play Yugant [End of an Era], the release said.

The other winners of the Akademi Awards are Nalinidhar Bhattacharya [Assamese], Sandipan Chattopadhyaya [Bengali], Om Vidyarthi [Dogri], Amit Choudhuri [English], Dhruv Bhat [Gujarati], Rajesh Joshi [Hindi], S Narayana Setty [Kannada], Naji Munawar [Kashmiri], Hema Naik [Konkani], Somdev [Maithili], K G Sankara Pillai [Malayalam], R K Bhubansana [Manipuri], Prem Pradhan [Nepali] and Bharat Ola [Rajasthani].

Sarat Kumar Mohanty [Oriya], Harbhajan Halwarvi [Punjabi], Kashinath Mishra [Sanskrit], Hari Himthani [Sindhi] and Chekuri Rama Rao are among the others chosen for biography, poetry, short stories and essays respectively.

The winners of the Sahitya Akademi for translation are Prabhat Chandra Sarma [Assamese], Usha Ranjan Bhattacharya [Bengali], Neetha Kumar [English], Shakuntala Mehta [Gujarati], Krishan Mohan [Hindi], Veena Santeshwara [Kannada], Gokuldas Prabhu [Konkini], Prabodh Narayan Singh [Maithili] and Damodharan Kaliyath [Malayalam].

Megachandra Heirangkhongjam [Manipuri], Ibrahim Afgan [Marathi], Shanthi Thapa [Nepali], Nrusingha Tripathy [Oriya], Gulwant 'Farigh' [Punjabi], Satyanarayan Swami [Rajasthani], D V Subba Rao [Telegu] and Rattan Singh [Urdu].