Shashi Tharoor named for Sahitya Akademi Award 2019

Eminent author, politician and diplomat Shashi Tharoor was on Wednesday among the 23 writers named for the Sahitya Akademi Award 2019 for his book An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India in the creative non-fiction in English category.

Sahitya Akademi Secretary K Sreenivasa Rao made the announcement in a press release. The awards, comprising an engraved copper plaque, a shawl and Rs 100,000 in cash, will be given away on Feburary 25, 2020 during the Akademi's Festival of Letters. They relate to books first published during the five years immediately preceding the year of Award - in the period January 1, 2013 and December 31, 2017. Tharoor's book appeared in 2016.

A masterful weaver of words that have won him innumerable accolades, Tharoor is the author of bestsellers like Why I Am A Hindu, The Paradoxical Prime Minister and Inglorious Empire.

Tharoor who represents the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in the Lok Sabha, is also the patron of the Kerala Literature Festival in Calicut next month.