Sahitya Akademi Awards 2023

• 23 Dec 2023

Source: PIB

Why in News?

Recently, the Sahitya Akademi announced the Sahitya Akademi Award 2023 in 24 languages.

• Nine books of poetry, six novels, five short story collections, three essays and one literary study have won the Sahitya Akademi Awards this year.
• The award, in the form of a casket containing an engraved copper-plaque, a shawl, and RS 1,00,000, will be presented to the awardees.

What is the Sahitya Akademi Award?

• About:
  • Sahitya Akademi award established in 1954, is a literary honour that is conferred annually by Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of letters.
  • Akademi gives 24 awards annually to literary works in the languages it has recognized and an equal number of awards to literary translations from and into the languages of India. 
    • Besides the 22 languages enumerated in the Constitution of India, the Sahitya Akademi has recognised English and Rajasthani as languages in which its programme may be implemented.
  • The Sahitya Akademi award is the second-highest literary honour by the Government of India, after the Jnanpith award.
• Criteria for Choosing Awardee:
  • The author must be of Indian Nationality.
  • Book/work eligible for the award must be an outstanding contribution to the language and literature to which it belongs.
  • When equal merit for books of two or more are found, certain criteria like total literary contribution and standing of authors shall be taken into consideration for declaring the award.
• Other Sahitya Akademi Awards:
  • Sahitya Akademi Bal Sahitya Puraskar is given to an author based on his/her total contribution to children literature and relates to books first published during the five years immediately preceding the year of Award.
  • Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar relates to books published by an author of the age of 35 and below.