Sahitya Akademi Awards 2025
Context:
The Sahitya Akademi recently announced the winners of the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Awards 2025, recognizing outstanding literary works across 24 Indian languages.
The awards are set to be formally presented in New Delhi.
Highlights of the 2025 Awards:
This year's selection celebrates a wide range of literary forms, conferring honors upon eight poetry books, four novels, six short stories, two essays, one literary criticism, one autobiography, and two memoirs.
Prominent awardees include Mamta Kalia for her Hindi memoir Jeete Jee Allahabad, diplomat Navtej Sarna for his English novel Crimson Spring, and Pritpal Singh Betab for his Urdu poetry Safar Jaari Hai.
Other notable winners include Devabrat Das (Assamese novel) and Prasun Bandyopadhyay (Bengali poetry).
Each awardee is presented with a cash prize of ₹1 lakh accompanied by an engraved copper plaque.
About Sahitya Akademi:
The Sahitya Akademi was established by a resolution passed by the Government of India on 15 December 1952.
It was registered as a society on 7 January 1956, under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
Besides the twenty-two languages enumerated in the Constitution of India, the Sahitya Akademi has also recognized English and Rajasthani as languages in which its programmes are to be implemented.
Though set up by the Government, the Akademi functions as an autonomous organisation.
To promote and coordinate literary activities across the country, the Akademi operates regional offices in Kolkata, Bangalore, Chennai, and Mumbai.
A key cultural preservation initiative of the Akademi involves archiving original oral texts in audio and video formats.
These are accompanied by written translations in Scheduled languages and English to create a comprehensive repository known as the 'House of Voices'.
Award Categories:
Sahitya Akademi Award à most outstanding book(s) of literary merit
Bhasha Samman àto writers/ scholars /editors etc for propagation and enrichment of languages
Translation Prize à in 24 languages
Bal Sahitya Puraskar à contributions to children’s literature in 24 languages
Yuva Puraskar à to young Indian writers in 24 languages)