Diganta Biswa Sarma conferred Sahitya Akademi Translation Award

Dec. 30: Diganta Biswa Sarma from Assam was conferred the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Translation Award He is a well known translator and intellectual of Assam. The “Bharatiya Sanskritir Bhitti” an Assamese translation of ‘The Renaissance in India and Other Essays on Indian Culture’ by Author, Translator Diganta Biswa Sarma has been selected for the prestigious “Sahitya Akademy Translation Prize 2020’.

A profound devotee of Sri Aurobindo, translator Diganta Biswa Sarma translated the Assamese book from the English version of ‘The foundation of Indian Culture’ by Maharshi Aurobindo, which was originally published by Sri Aurobindo Library, New York in 1953. The book is a collection of 32 essays by Sri Aurobindo published in the monthly journal Arya between 1918 and 1921. This includes The Renaissance in India, Indian Culture and External Influence, Is India Civilized, A Defence of Indian Culture, Religion and Spirituality etc.

Sahitya Akademi Translation Award 2020 presentation ceremony was held at the Sahitya Akademi’s auditorium on a modest scale. It may be mentioned that the ceremony was first scheduled to be held at Karnani Auditorium, 1 Copernicus Marg, New Delhi, but due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and Omicron and in view of Delhi Government’s new guidelines, the ceremony was called off.

Due to the pandemic, the function, which was supposed to be held in the premises of Rabindra Bhavan at 4:00 p.m. for welcoming the award winners of the Translation Award on the same day, was also cancelled. Eminent. Rajasthani literary scholar and Vice-President of National School of Drama and the Chief Guest of the ceremony Arjun Dev Charan said that translation is a highly complex undertaking and involves a creative act of re-writing.

Press Release: Sahitya Akademi Translation Award 2020 presentation ceremony, 30/12/2021#AmritMahotsav @AmritMahotsav @kishanreddybjp @arjunrammeghwal @M_Lekhi @MinOfCultureGoI @secycultureGOI @Sen2Partha @ksraosahitya @BOC_MIB @PIB_India @PIBCulture @MIB_India @DDNational pic.twitter.com/IEC1Y1OE0P

— Sahitya Akademi (@sahityaakademi) December 30, 2021

The award presentation ceremony was chaired by the President of Sahitya Akademi Chandrashekhar Kamban. He stated that presenting awards to translators’ of the country gave him immense pleasure. He added that translation enables him to experience the rich diversity of India. In his concluding remarks, Madhav Kaushik, Vice-President, Sahitya Akademi, observed that translators perform a highly noble task of making texts written in one language reach and enrich other linguistic and cultural worlds.

Dr. K. Sreenivasarao, Secretary, Sahitya Akademi, read-out the citations for the award-winning-translators. The winners of the Translation Award 2020- are – Diganta Biswa Sarma (Assamese), Kameswar Brahma (Bodo), Sunita Bhadwal -(Dogri), Srinath Perur (English), Kashyapi Maha (Gujarati), TES Raghavan. (Hindi), S. .Nataraja Budalu (Kannada), Shafqat Altaf (Kashmiri), Jayashree Shanbhag (Konkani), Late Jitendia Narain Jha (Maithali),  Sudbakaran Ramanthali (Malayalam), Sonali Navangul (Marathi), Bhavani Adhikari(Nepali), Ghansham Nath Kachhawa (Rajasthani), Manjusha Kulkarni (Sanskrit), Chandra. Mohan Kisku (Santali), Ranganatha Ramchandra Rao (Telugu).