22 Writers including Novelists, Poets & Playwrights chosen for Sahitya Akademi Awards for 2011

Twenty-two writers selected on 21 December for the prestigious Sahitya Akademi awards for2011. Eight books of poetry, seven novels, three essays and one each short stories, narrative history, biography and play were selected for the awards. Writers in 23 languages are recongised every year by the Akademi.The books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by a jury of three members in each language.

The awards that are given every year and contain an engraved cooper plaque, a shawl and a cheque of Rs 1 lakh.

Sahitya Akademi awards for Poetry

Poets chosen for the award includes: Late Kabin Phukan (Assamese), Manindra Gupta (Bengali), Premananda Mosahari (Bodo), Naseem Shafaie (Kashmiri), Melvyn Rodrigues (Konkani), Harekrishna Satapathy (Sanskrit), Aditya Kumar Mandi (Santali) and Khaleel Mamoon (Urdu).

Sahitya Akademi awards for Novels

Novelists who won the award include: Kashinath Singh (Hindi), Kshetri Bira (Manipuri), Kalpanakumari Devi (Odia), Baldev Singh (Punjabi) and Atul Kanakk (Rajasthani).

Tamil novelist Su Venkatesan's , debut novel Kaval Kottam earned him the coveted Sahitya Akademi Award in Tamil section. The book is about the 600-year old history of the city of Madurai and a security system that prevailed there

Awardees in Essays Category

Lalit Magotra (Dogri), Grace (Marathi) and Samala Sadasiva (Telugu) received the award for their books on essays.

Awardees in Other Sections

Historian Ramachandra Guha was chosen for the award for his book of narrative history - India After Gandhi. Mohan Parmar (Gujarati) was chosen for his short stories, M.K. Sanu (Malayalam) for his biography and Mohan Gehani (Sindhi) for his book on plays.