Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi felicitates authors

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Chandigarh, February 25

The Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi held an event to felicitate authors at Government Museum and Art Gallery, Sector 10, here today.

Renowned writer and former president of the National Sahitya Akademi Padam Shri Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari was the chief guest during the award ceremony.

The Akademi announced awards for authors from Chandigarh and tricity for years 2020 and 2021. The ceremony was delayed because of the Covid-19 restrictions. These awards carry a cash prize of Rs 25,000 each. Writers of five languages were awarded on the occasion.

The ‘Best Book of the Year Award’ (2020-2021) winners for Hindi language were Ajay Singh Rana and Aneeta Surbhi in the poetry category; Sulekha Sharma and Kiran Kalia in children’s literature category; Promila Rani Gupta and Ritu Bhanot in the translation category; and Vijay Soudai (novel) and Shailja Kaushal Kochhar in the story category. Writer Shailja was conferred with the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi Award for the second time for her book “Paanch Ke Sikke Tatha Anya Kahaniyan”.

The Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi also awarded four awards each to English and Punjabi language authors, whereas in Urdu only Chaman Sharma won in the poetry category. Kumar Harsh (poetry), Manju Jaidka (Novel), Lily Swarn (poetry) and Sulekha Sharma (Children Literature) were the winners in the English language for their respective books. In Punjabi language, Bahadur Singh Gosai (children literature), Surinder Bansal (translation), Harpreet Singh Chanu (story) and Satwinder Singh Dhanoa (poetry) lifted the award and the cash prize.