Literary critic D.S. Nagabhushan has been awarded the Kendra Sahitya Akademi award for 2021 for his work Gandhi Kathana, biography of Mahatma Gandhi.
While Basu Bevinagidad has won the Bal Sahitya Puraskar for his children’s novel Odi Hoda Huduga, H. Lakshmi Narayan Swamy has been awarded the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar for his poetry Togala Cheelada Karna. The awards were announced on Thursday.
Gandhi Kathana has already seen over 20 editions and has been one of the successful books in recent years. “I started writing the book to introduce Gandhi to children, but failed. But I took up writing a biography, as I felt Gandhi is what we need for the times. As a socialist, I also have a different perspective to see Gandhi. The success of the book and the award has shown Gandhi is alive and kicking, we only need to find him,” he told The Hindu. Mr. Nagabhushan also edits and brings out a literary magazine Hosa Manushya.
Mr. Lakshmi Narayan Swamy hails from Bengaluru and teaches Kannada at the PG centre, Ramanagaram, of Bangalore University.
His Togala Cheelada Karna tries to reinterpret Mahabharata for the contemporary age through the character of Karna. “I have been trying to experiment with poetry, writing khanda kavya and mahakavya. The award comes as a great encouragement for me to experiment more,” he said.
“There has been a lot of work done in poetry for children, but not much in prose. I have been trying to write novels for children in the social realism style, and with no elements of fantasy. The award comes as a recognition of that,” Mr. Basu Bevinagidad said.
