Kakkanadan Foundation institutes literary award

The annual award would be given to writers from four zones of the country on rotation basis.

Writers from the Eastern Zone including Assamese, Odiya, Bengali and Manipuri were being considered for this year's award, Foundation chairman M A Baby told reporters here.

The award carries a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh, statuette and citation.

The jury, chaired by K Sachidanandan, has Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee, Manabendra Bandyopadhyay and M Thomas Mathew as its members.

The award would be declared in New Delhi on August 24 and presented on the first death anniversary of Kakkanadan at a function to be held here on October 19.

The Foundation has also instituted an endowment of Rs 10,000 for research in Malayalam language and literature. Works based on Kakkanadan's novels would be given priority.

A website, www.Kakkanadanfoundation.Com, has been launched by the foundation to provide information on the works of Kakkanadan.