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| Dash Benhur |
Bhubaneswar, Aug. 22: Two Odia authors have earned honours from the highest body for literature in the country, the Sahitya Akademi.
While the Baal Sahitya Puraskar for children’s literature has been announced for children’s author Dash Benhur, poet Narendra Bhoi has bagged the award for young authors.
Jitendra Narayan Dash, who writes under the pseudonym of Dash Benhur, is immensely popular among readers of all ages. He has been writing for many years now and has to his credit over 100 books that include 15 collections of short stories alone. Dash is also a reputed Gandhian scholar and was a former principal of SCS College in Puri. The winner of prestigious awards such as those from the Odisha Sahitya Akademi and the Odisha Bigyan Academy, however, feels children’s literature is at its nadir right now.
“I’m happy to get the award. It was instituted five years ago to encourage and inspire children’s writers, and I would be the fifth recipient. Children’s literature has been neglected for long and the case is similar in the national level, where it is ignored both by readers and promoters,” said Dash.
“We have writers for adults in Odisha but not many youngsters, who choose to write for the children. The young readers, too, have many forms of entertainment such as television and mobile phones that have distracted them from the habit of reading storybooks. Of course, there is also a dearth of good children’s books,” he said.
The author feels themes based on technology and modern set-ups interest the today’s children, but literature for them needs to be rooted in the past and future of the state as well as the country. Apart from Dash, poet Narendra Bhoi would be awarded the youth award or Yuva Puraskar for his book Pida Parba. His other popular works are Dhundukuda and Swara Nijara.
“I’m delighted to be receiving the honour and more so because this particular collection of poems was my labour of love. It reflects the issues of our society is facing,” said Bhoi, who is in his 30s and lives at Nurpa village of Boudh district.
The awards were announced in Guwahati today.
