Odisha Sun Times Bureau

Bhubaneswar, Dec 17:

Popular Odia novelist Bibhuti Patnaik will receive the prestigious Kendra Sahitya Akademi award for the year 2015. Patnaik was selected for the award for his anthology of stories “Mahisasura ra Muhan”. This was announced by the Kendra Sahitya Akademi at New Delhi today.

bibhuti patnaik

Patnaik is a popular story teller in Odia. A prolific writer, Patnaik till date has published 400 books to his credit. Many of his novels have been made into films. Apart from novels he has penned travelogues, biographies and collection of essays.

Earlier, Patnaik has been awarded the Odisha Sahitya Akademi award in 1985, the prestigious Sarala Samman in 1999 and the Sahitya Bharati award in 2007.

“This award has come at a time when many of my litterateur friends have returned this award. So I am not very happy on being  selected for it. While writers are returning their Kendra Sahitya Akademi awards on the issue of intolerance, many stories in my work ‘Mahisasura ra Muhan’ selected for the award have the imprint of intolerance in them,” said Patnaik on his reactions on being selected for the Kendra Sahitya Akademi award.