PANAJI: Famous novelists G. Thilakavathi (Kalmaram in Tamil), Raghavendra Patil (Teru in Kannada), Yeshe Dorje Thongchi (Mouna Ounth Mukhar Hriday in Assamese) and Manohar Joshi (Kyap in Hindi) are amongst the 23 selected for the Sahitya Akademi awards for 2005.

The awards recommended by the jury members representing 23 Indian languages were approved by the Executive Board of the Sahitya Akademi, the apex literary body of the country, which met here on Thursday under the chairmanship of its president Gopi Chand Narang.

Poets and short story writers dominated the 2005 awards. The Chairman said that while the award in English would be declared in due course, the award for Bengali would be declared after re-consideration.

Mr. Narang said that for the first time awards to books in the newly recognised Bodo and Santhali languages had been given.

Short stories

Those who won awards for their collection of short stories included Abburi Chayadevi (Tana Margam - Telugu), G. V. Kakkanadan (Jappana Pukayila - Malayalam), N. Shivdas (Bhaangarsaall - Konkani), Krishnan Sharma (Dhaldi Dhuppe Da Sek - Dogri), M. Nabakishore Singh (Pangal Shonbi Eishe Adomgeeni - Manipuri), Ramchandra Behera (Gopapura - Oriya), Gurbachan Singh Bhull (Agni-Kalas - Punjabi) and Chetan Swami (Kisturi Mirag - Rajasthan).

Famous poets Mangalsingh Hazowary (Jiuni Mwgthang Bisombi Arw Aroj - Bodo), Suresh Dalal (Akhand Zalar Vage - Gujarati), Hamidi Kashmiri (Yath Miani Joye - Kashmiri), Vivekanand Thakur (Chanan Ghan Gachchiya - Maithili), Swami Rambhadracharya (Sri Bhargava Raghaviyam (Epic) - Sanskrit), Jadumani Besra (Bhabna - Santhali), Dholan `Rahi' (Andhero Roshan Thiye - Sindhi) and late Arun Kolhatkar (Bhijaki Vahi - Marathi) are among those who have won the awards.

Krishna Singh Moktan (Jeevan Goreto Ma - Nepali) was honoured for his collection of essays and Jabir Husain (Ret Per Khema - Urdu) was honoured for his book of memoirs.

Selection procedure

Mr. Narang said the books were selected on the basis of recommendations made by a jury of three members in the concerned languages in accordance with the procedure.

The Executive Board declared the awards on the basis of unanimous selections made by the jurors or selection made on the basis of majority vote. The awards related to books first published during the three years immediately preceding the year of award.

K. Sachidanandan, Secretary, said the award in the form of a casket containing an engraved copper-plaque and a cheque of Rs. 50,000 would be presented at a function to be held in New Delhi in February.

Talking to presspersons after the Executive Board meeting, Mr. Sachidanandan said the Akademi, which had recognised 24 languages had ruled out recognition to any new languages in the immediate future.

There was a lot of demand from various parts of the country in this regard, but the Akademi had decided that unless any language was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, it would not be recognised by the Akademi.

Vishnu Prabhakar, veteran writer in Hindi, and Manoj Das, writer in Oriya and English, had been bestowed fellowship.

"Net publishing"

To meet the growing challenges from the Internet, the Akademi was studying the possibility of entering "net publishing" and putting its books on the Net.

"We are thinking of opening websites of our periodical literary journals in English as well as in Hindi," Mr. Sachidanandan said.

As for marketing of books, he said the cost aspect vis-a-vis competition was a big factor.

Nevertheless, the Akademi was going all out to promote its books through institutions as well as by participation in book exhibitions domestically and internationally, he said.

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