Novelist Geetanjali Shree, Dr. Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi to be conferred with Prestigious Kalinga Literary Awards for the year 2023

Bhubaneswar: The prestigious Kalinga Literary Awards for the year 2023 will be conferred on eminent Hindi Novelist Geetanjali Shree and Educationist, screenplay writer, playwright, art critic, and theatre director Dr. Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi. Penguin Random House and Rajkamal Prakashan will be getting the Publishing House of the Year Award. This was informed by the Kalinga Literary Festival, Founder and Director, Mr. Rashmi Ranjan Parida.

The awards instituted by Kalinga Literary Festival in the year 2013 in three categories. From this year Kalinga Literary Festival will provide Rs 1 lakh award prize for the Kalinga International Literary Award winner and Rs 50,000/  for the Kalinga Literary Award winner. The award will also carry a trophy and citation. The award will be conferred to the winners at the inaugural Ceremony of the 9^th Kalinga Literary Festival on 24^th February at Swosti Premium in Bhubaneswar.

Kalinga International Literary Award (English & Hindi language) – Novelist Geetanjali Shree

Kalinga Literary Award (Odia): Dr. Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi

Profile: Dr. Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi is an Academician, Playwright, Theatre Director, Lyricist, Theatre Scholar, screenplay writer & Art critic. Educationist, screenplay writer, playwright, art critic and theatre director rolled into one, Dr Ramesh Prasad Panigrahi is a living legend in the world of Odia drama with 83 plays beside a number of books in English on art and culture of Odisha in his ensemble. Dr Panigrahi, a Professor of English literature by profession and a playwright by passion, takes his audience on a rollercoaster ride to an exotic arena where he listens to new music of consciousness.

Profile: Geetanjali Shree is an Indian Hindi-language novelist and short-story writer based in New Delhi, India. She is the author of several short stories and five novels. Her 2000 novel Mai was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award in 2001, while her English translation by Nita Kumar was published by Niyogi Books in 2017. In 2022, her novel Ret Samadhi (2018), translated into English as Tomb of Sand by Daisy Rockwell, won the International Booker Prize. Aside from fiction, she has written critical works on Premchand. Geetanjali Shree won the International Booker Prize in 2022. She is the author of three novels and several story collections, and her work has been translated into English, French, German, Serbian, and Korean.

The annual iconic Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF) is all set to run from 24th – 26^th February in the temple city of Bhubaneswar at Swosti Premium Hotel. Marking its ninth year, the festival will showcase a powerhouse of writers, speakers, thinkers, and humanitarians from all walks of life. The literary extravaganza will see a spectacular range of language diversity in the program, represented by 10 countries and over 25 languages.

For its 2023 edition, the festival will host over 500 speakers from across a vast array of nationalities, as well as recipients of major awards such as the Nobel, the Booker, the International Booker, the Sahitya Akademi, and many more. It will feature a range of themes including the ongoing climate justice debate under the urgency of borrowed time theme; the great women writers and artists focusing on the female voice and identity, crime fiction, memoir, translation, poetry, economics, tech morality, and Artificial Intelligence, the global crisis, cutting-edge science, India and the World, art and photography, health and medicine, amongst others.

Kalinga Literary Festival is well known for its socially relevant themes and in a way compels all ‘creative’ people to think and articulate ‘the contemporary’. Like its past editions the KLF, this year also has a hard-hitting theme for writers, poets, and artists to ponder on.  This year’s Central theme of the Kalinga Literary Festival is Central Theme: “India and the World”.