K R Meera bags central Sahitya Akademi award for best novel.
Kochi: K.R. Meera has captured the turbulent life of a hangwoman in Kolkata in her bestselling novel Aarachar that keeps on winning one accolade after another.
The central Sahitya Akademi award for best Malayalam novel is the second honour the book receives this year: Hangwoman, its English translation by J Devika, has been shortlisted for the prestigious DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016.
Meera is the third Keralite to get this is honour after Jeet Tayyil and Manu Joseph who write in English. The book, published in 2012, has also won the Kerala Sahithya Academy Award and Odakkuzhal Award (2013) and Vayalar award (2014). The novel continues to be a bestseller in Malayalam, selling more than 75,000 copies in 20 editions.
“The award makes me both happy and sad as it comes to me when state-sponsored terrorism and intolerance loom over the country,” Meera told DC. “Arachar tried to reflect state terror through the eyes of a woman and its winning an award makes me overwhelmed.”
Meera’s latest work is a short fiction named Bhagawante Maranam (Bhagawan’s death) and Dr. K S Bhagawan, who is facing the threat of Hindu fundamentalists, will translate it in to Kannada soon.
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( Source : deccan chronicle )
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