CNN Central News & Network-ITDC India Epress/ITDC News Bhopal: Swayam Prakash Smriti Nyas, an institution working in the field of literature and culture, has announced its annual award instituted in memory of noted litterateur Swayam Prakash.
In a statement issued by the trust, its president Dr Durgaprasad Agarwal said the national-level honour will this time be given in the non-fiction category to young writer Padmaja’s diary ‘Main Koi Aur’. A three-member jury unanimously recommended the diary for the 2026 award.
In his recommendation, jury chairman and noted critic Sanjeev Kumar (Delhi) said Padmaja’s diary ‘Main Koi Aur’ is a unique story of resilience and struggle. It is the story of losing the ability to write and speak during treatment and then regaining it, narrated with a certain rawness of this newly acquired skill. That rawness itself becomes an example of a style and craft that follow the subject. Undoubtedly, Padmaja’s book holds a distinctive place in non-fiction literature published over the past four years, he said.
Senior jury member, poet and writer Shanti Nair (Kaladi), said in her recommendation that Padmaja’s book ‘Main Koi Aur’ comes before readers as a moving document of life’s struggles, self-identity and indomitable will to live. The experience recorded in the book – of a prolonged illness, a series of brain surgeries, complete memory loss and then the subsequent regaining of lost memory, language and the abilities of daily life – is extraordinary.
The third jury member, critic Pallav (Delhi), said Padmaja has shown through her very first published work how writing can be created with the simplicity and poignancy of personal experience. Such works, he said, will undoubtedly help establish non-fiction writing as a representative creative medium of our time. Young writers like Padmaja are leaving conventional forms to open up experience through a genre such as the diary, which certainly reflects the importance of non-fiction. Originally a resident of Jaipur, Padmaja has been consistently active in the fields of children’s literature and film. Her diary was published in 2025.
Dr Agarwal said Swayam Prakash, originally from Ajmer in Rajasthan, is known for his original contribution to Hindi fiction. He wrote nearly 250 short stories and also published five novels. Apart from these, Swayam Prakash is also known in the Hindi literary world for his contributions to plays, sketches, memoirs, essays and children’s literature. He received several awards and honours from the Sahitya Akademi of the Government of India and various academies and institutions across the country. Research work on his writing has been carried out in several universities, and many magazines have also published special issues evaluating his literature.
Born on January 20, 1947, at his maternal grandparents’ home in Indore, Swayam Prakash died of cancer on December 7, 2019. He had been living in Bhopal for a long time and was also associated with the editing of the magazines ‘Vasudha’ and ‘Chakmak’ published from the city.
Dr Agarwal said Padmaja will be presented Rs 11,000, a citation and a shawl at a ceremony to be held in February. Swayam Prakash Smriti Nyas, formed for the promotion of literature and democratic ideas, has poet Rajesh Joshi (Bhopal), critic Durgaprasad Agarwal (Jaipur), poet-critic Ashish Tripathi (Banaras), critic Pallav (Delhi), engineer Ankita Sawant (Mumbai) and Apoorva Mathur (Delhi) as members.
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