‘Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman’ Award

MUMBAI:
Bank of Baroda (Bank), one of India’s leading public sector banks, today announced the long-list of 12 Novels, nominated for the first edition of the ‘Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman’ Award 2023. The unique award has been instituted to recognize and promote literary works in various Indian languages (included under the 8th Schedule of the Constitution) as well as to make the best Indian literature available to Hindi readers through translations, thereby broadening the interest and making the novels accessible to a larger set of readers.

The ‘Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman’ Award will be presented to both the author of the original work and the translator of the book in to Hindi. The author of the original work and the respective Hindi translator of the award-winning book will receive Rs. 21.00 lakh and Rs. 15.00 lakh respectively. Moreover, the authors and the Hindi translators of the next five shortlisted books will receive Rs. 3.00 lakh and Rs. 2.00 lakh each respectively.

Unveiling the long-list of nominations, Sanjiv Chadha, Managing Director & CEO, Bank of Baroda said “India is a diverse country – a melting pot of cultures, religions and languages. And in its diversity lies its strength and distinctiveness. We believe that the promotion of literature across Indian languages helps strengthen our multiculturalism. We established ‘Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman’ to recognize and celebrate original Indian language literature and the translations of these works in Hindi. The ‘Bank of Baroda Rashtrabhasha Samman’ award will offer a national platform to talented Indian writers from different parts of the country and will give a boost to Indian language literature as well as encourage literary translations.”

The five-member awards jury is chaired by renowned author and Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree. The other four jury members are Arun Kamal, an Indian poet; Pushpesh Pant, an academic and historian; Anamika, a contemporary Indian poet and novelist; and Prabhat Ranjan, a Hindi fiction writer and translator.