Assam and Bodo writers to get the award

Guwahati: Two writers from the northeast, writing in Assamese and Bodo, will receive the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award. The list of awardees for the year 2014 was declared by the Akademi in New Delhi on Friday.
The names of the awardees for Manipuri and Sanskrit will be declared later, said a statement issued by the Akademi.
While prominent Assamese writer Arupa Patangia Kalita will receive the award for her collection of short stories, Mariam Austin Othoba Hira Barua, former Rajya Sabha MP from Kokrajhar, Urkhao Gwra Brahma, will receive it for his collection of poems in Bodo, Udangnifrai Gidingfinnanwi (which means ‘coming back from freedom’).
Mariam Austin Othoba Hira Barua is a collection of short stories featuring a foreigner, Mariam Austin, and an Assamese girl, Hira Barua. “I’m not excited about awards. I like doing my work in my own way,” said Kalita, a well-respected author who teaches English literature in Tangla College in Udalguri district.
She is working on her next novel and has won a number of awards, including the Bharatiya Bhasa Parishad award. She had declined Asam Sahitya Sabha’s Basanti Devi Award in protest against being nominated in the ‘women only’ category.
Brahma, a senior leader of Bodoland People’s Progressive Front (BPPF), said, “This is my first literary award. It’s highly satisfying to be honoured by the Sahitya Akademi. I didn’t intend to be a litterateur and these poems capture my emotions during a tough phase in my political career,” an excited Brahma told TOI.