Noted Assamese litterateur and Padma Shri awardee Lakshmi Nandan Bora passed away at a private hospital in Guwahati on Thursday. He was 91.
Suffering from ailments associated with old age, he was admitted to the hospital more than a week ago after he tested positive for COVID-19.
Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi and Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma mourned the death of the writer whose novel Patal Bhairavi fetched him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1988.
“His death has left a void in the Assamese literary world,” former Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said.
Another of his novels, Kayakalpa, won him the Saraswati Samman in 2008.
Mr. Bora was the first person to be awarded a doctoral degree in meteorology by the Andhra University and he had served as a visiting professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University at Mainz in Germany.
He also served as the president of the prestigious Assam Sahitya Sabha (1996-97) and was the chairman of the Assam Pollution Control Board from 1997-2003.
He edited Goriyoshi, an Assamese monthly literary magazine, too.
