Sahitya Akademi Award for Katyayani Vidmahe, KU’s Telugu Professor

Katyayani Vidmahe, a noted litterateur and Kakatiya University Telugu department professor, has been declared the winner of the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award for Telugu-2013 for her work Sahityakashamlo Sagam- Streela Asthitwa Sahityam– Kavitwam– Katha, a compilation of essays published in 2010.

Incidentally Prof. Katyayani is the second winner of the Kendra Sahitya Akademi award for Telugu from Warangal after Ampassayya Naveen, who had received the honour for his novel, Kala Rekhalu, in 2004. Her father was an eminent teacher and critic – late Prof. Kethavarapu Ramakoti Sastry.

Born in Prakasam district, she grew up, studied and worked in Warangal and Hyderabad. A gold medalist in MA Telugu in 1977 from Kakatiya University, her literary career spans more than two decades.
She started her teaching career in 1977 at Kakatiya University, where she pursued her PhD on the famous Telugu novel Chivaraku Migiledi. She has to her credit 275 research papers on Telugu literature, besides 28 published books and 25 books as an editor.

Bollywood lyricist-scriptwriter Javed Akhtar, Hindi novelist Mridula Garg and renowned Bengali poet Subodh Sarkar are among those selected for this year’s Sahitya Akademi Award.

The Akademi said eight books of poetry, four essays, three novels, two short stories, two travelogues, an autobiography, a memoir and one play have been chosen for the coveted award.

The Awards are recommended by distinguished jury members, representing 22 Indian languages and approved by the Executive Board of the Akademi, which met today under the Chair of Sahitya Akademi President Vishwanath Prasad Tiwari.

The award, a literary honour conferred to writers for their outstanding works in the field of literature, is scheduled to be conferred here on March 11 during the annual Akademi’s Festival of Letters.