The Sahitya Akademi announced the names of 23 writers who will receive the prestigious Yuva Puraskar across as many languages. The National Academy of Letters also announced the names of 24 winners of the Bal Sahitya Puraskar for 2024. The winner of the Yuva Puraskar in Sanskrit will be announced at a later date.
The winners of the Yuva Puraskar will receive a casket containing an engraved copper plaque and a cheque of Rs 50,000 at an awards ceremony later. For the Bal Sahitya Puraskar, the Akademi has selected the winners, who will also receive a casket containing an engraved copper plaque and a cheque of Rs 50,000 at a special function to be held at a later date.
The winners of the Yuva Puraskar and the Bal Sahitya Puraskar are as follows: – K Vaishali for her memoir “Homeless: Growing up Lesbian and Dyslexic in India” and Gaurav Pandey for his poetry collection “Smritiyon Ke Beech Ghiri Hai Prithvi”.
Other awardees include Nayanjyoti Sarma (Assamese), Sutapa Chakraborty (Bengali), Self Made Rani Baro (Bodo), Heena Choudhary (Dogri), Rinku Rathod (Gujarati), Shruti B R (Kannada), Mohd Ashraf Ziya (Kashmiri), Adwait Salgaonkar (Konkani), Rinki Jha Rishika (Maithili), Shyamkrishnan R (Malayalam), Waikhom Chingkheinganba (Manipuri), Devidas Saudagar (Marathi), Suraj Chapagain (Nepali), Sanjay Kumar Panda (Odia), Randhir (Punjabi), Sonali Sutar (Rajasthani), Anjan Karmakar (Santali), Geeta Pradeep Rupani (Sindhi), Lokesh Raghuraman (Tamil), Ramesh Karthik Nayak (Telugu), Javed Amber Misbahi (Urdu).
For the Bal Sahitya Puraskar, the winners are Nandini Sengupta for her historical fiction “The Blue Horse and Other Amazing Animal Stories from Indian History” and Devender Kumar for his collection of children’s stories “51 Baal Kahaniyan”. Other winners include Ranju Hazarika (Assamese), Dipanwita Roy (Bengali), Birgin Jekova Machahary (Bodo), Bishan Singh ‘Dardi’ (Dogri), Gira Pinakin Bhatt (Gujarati), Krishnamurthy Biligere (Kannada), Muzaffar Hussain Dilbar (Kashmiri), Harsha Sadguru Shetye (Konkani), Narayangee (Maithili), Unni Ammayambalam (Malayalam), Kshetrimayun Subadani (Manipuri), Bharat Sasane (Marathi), Basanta Thapa (Nepali), Manas Ranjan Samal (Odia), Kuldeep Singh Deep (Punjabi), Prahlad Singh ‘Jhorda’ (Rajasthani), Harshdev Madhav (Sanskrit), Dugal Tudu (Santali), Lal Hotchandani ‘Lachaar’ (Sindhi), Yuva Vasuki (Tamil), P Chandrashekhar Azad (Telugu), Shamsul Islam Farooqi (Urdu).