The award has been instituted to recognize and celebrate three prolific writers, poets and performers in Odia, in one Indian language and in one international language. The awardees have been chosen keeping in mind their contribution to their specific language and genres.
Arundhathi Subramaniam is an award-winning poet, artist and an eminent writer on spirituality and culture who won the first Khushwant Singh Memorial Prize for Poetry for her work When God is a Traveller at the Jaipur Literature Festival in 2015.
Nabaneeta Dev Sen is an award-winning Indian poet, novelist and academic who has more than 80 books in Bengali. She has won the Sahitya Akademi Award and has been conferred the Padma Shri for her contribution to Bengali literature.
Soubhagya Kumar Mishra is a leading award winning Odia poet. He has been writing poetry since 1955 and has published 11 volumes of poetry. He was awarded both Central and State Sahitya Akademi Awards for his poetry. He has also received two other important awards, the Sahitya Bharati Sanman and Gangadhar National Award for his contribution to Odia literature.
“Literature has the potential to connect a divided society and it can transform self-centeredness to world-centeredness. Kalinga Literature Festival was launched in 2014 to celebrate this potential of literature. Mystic Kalinga, an international festival of poetry and performances, emerged out of the need to connect to people’s hearts through poems, songs, dances and meditations,” Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Director and Founder, Kalinga Literary Festival said in a statement.