Jayant Mahapatra wins Kanhaiya Lal Sethia prize for poetry

This year’s Kanhaiya Lal Sethia Poetry Prize was awarded to the veteran poet Jayant Mahapatra at a ceremony held here at the Jaipur Literature Festival 2017.

This award is established in memory of Mahakavi Kanhaiyalal Sethia, an eminent Rajasthani and Hindi poet. A cash prize of Rs 100,000 was given to the poet in presence of internationally renowned figures like the poet Anne Waldman, H.E Maharaja Gajsinghji of Jodhpur, Namita Gokhale, Sudeep Sen, Sukriti Paul, Jaiprakash Sethia  and  Siddharth Sethia of the K.L. Sethia Foundation.

Mahapatra’s work has appeared in several literary journals of importance. He is the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Poetry Prize for the year 1981 for his long poem titled, “Relationship”. A physicist by profession, Mahapatra has read poetry at various venues throughout the world such as the Adelaide Festival of Arts (Australia), Cuirt International Poetry Festival (Ireland), and the Poetry International at South Bank, London among others.

Congratulating the winner, Sanjoy K. Roy, producer, Jaipur Literature Festival, said, “Poetry has been JLF’s primary focus over the years. We are delighted we now have the Kanhaiya Lal Sethia Award for Poetry which recognises and rewards a poet with an extraordinary body of work.  I am delighted that Jayanta Mahapatra has won this year, this senior poet is a natural choice.”