Bank of Baroda announces the Long-list of 12 Nominees of the 'Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman' Award

 

Mumbai: "Bank of Baroda" (Bank), one of India's leading public sector banks, today announced the long-list of 12 Novels, nominated for the first edition of the "Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman" Award 2023. The unique award has been instituted to recognize and promote literary works in various Indian languages (included under the 8th Schedule of the Constitution) as well as to make the best Indian literature available to Hindi readers through translations, thereby broadening the interest and making the novels accessible to a larger set of readers.

The 'Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman' Award will be presented to both the author of the original work and the translator of the book in to Hindi. The author of the original work and the respective Hindi translator of the award-winning book will receive Rs. 21.00 lakh and Rs. 15.00 lakh respectively. Moreover, the authors and the Hindi translators of the next five shortlisted books will receive Rs. 3.00 lakh and Rs. 2.00 lakh each respectively.

Unveiling the long-list of nominations, Mr. Sanjiv Chadha, Managing Director & CEO, Bank of Baroda said “India is a diverse country – a melting pot of cultures, religions and languages. And in its diversity lies its strength and distinctiveness. We believe that the promotion of literature across Indian languages helps strengthen our multiculturalism. We established 'Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman' to recognize and celebrate original Indian language literature and the translations of these works in Hindi. The ‘Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman’ award will offer a national platform to talented Indian writers from different parts of the country and will give a boost to Indian language literature as well as encourage literary translations."

The Bank had initiated the process of inviting nominations during the period March-April 2023 and received several entries written in different Indian languages, from which the jury has prepared a long-list of 12 books. Details of the books are enumerated below in alphabetical order:

Original Novel Name	Original Language	Original Author Name	Translated Novel Name	Translator name
1. Abhipreta Kala	Odia	Paramita Satpathy	Abhipret Kaal	Ajoy Kumar Patnaik
2. Allah Miyan ka Karkhna	Urdu	Mohsin Khan	Allah Miyan Ka Karkhna	Saeed Ahmad
3. Baki Safa 5 te	Punjabi	Roop Singh	Baki Safa 5 par	Subhash Neerav
4. Cheeni Kothi	Urdu	Siddique Alam	Cheeni Kothi	Arjumand Ara
5. Ek Khanjar Paani Men	Urdu	Khalid Jawed	Ek Khanjar Paani Men	Rizvanul Haque
6. Fatsung	Nepali	Chuden Kavimo	Fatsung : Kahani Mitti Ki	Namrata Chaturvedi
7. Ghar Palano Chhele	Bengali	Manoranjan Byapari	Bhaga hua ladka	Amrita Bera
8. Mahanadi	Bengali	Anita Agnihotri	Mahanadi	Lipika Saha
9. Nadeesht	Marathi	Manoj Borgaokar	Nadeesht	Gorakh Thorat
10. Nemat Khana	Urdu	Khalid Jawed	Nemat Khana	Zaman Tariq
11. Poimugam	Tamil	Vaasanthi	Mukhauta	S Bhagyam Sharma
12. Thirakkaatha Jannalkal	Tamil	Vassanthi	Band Khidkiyan	S Bhagyam Sharma

The five-member awards jury is chaired by renowned author and Booker Prize winner Ms. Geetanjali Shree. The other four jury members are Mr. Arun Kamal, an Indian poet; Mr. Pushpesh Pant, an academic and historian; Ms. Anamika, a contemporary Indian poet and novelist; and Mr. Prabhat Ranjan, a Hindi fiction writer and translator.

At the long-list announcement event organised in Mumbai today, Shri Manoj Borgaokar, the original author and Shri Gorakh Thorat, the translator, of the book ‘Nadeesht’ - a Marathi-language novel which features amongst the 12 nominations, participated in a free-wheeling panel discussion. The two writers conversed on the Indian literature landscape and the significance of the Rashtrabhasha Samman award for the literary fraternity across India.

'Nadeesht' describes an environment enacted through the daily life of the people living on the banks of the Godavari river. The novel is included in the syllabus of various universities and is also staged in drama form in Pune. This is the eight edition of Nadeesht being published in three years and the novel has been translated in Kannada and Hindi.

The winner of the 'Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman' Award will be announced on 10th June, 2023 in Delhi.