Prize is jointly administered by the Srinivas Rayaprol Literary Trust and Department of English, UoH
Mihir Vatsa, a 22-year old post-graduate student of English in Delhi University, is the winner of the 5th Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize.
Mihir Kumar Jha, whose nom de plume is Mihir Vatsa is a poet from Jharkhand, currently studying in New Delhi. His poems have appeared in and are forthcoming from The Island Review, Eclectica Magazine, Contemporary Literary Review- India, The Four Quarters Magazine, and UCity Review among other places. In 2010 he started the website, Tales of Hazaribagh, to archive the places of natural and cultural significance in response to the ecological threats to the area from open-cast mining and industrial projects. He works with a Delhi-based NGO, Green Brigade, and currently serves as the poetry editor for VAYAVYA, an online magazine of poetry and art.
The Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize was instituted by the Hyderabad-based Srinivas Rayaprol Literary Trust to recognize excellence in poetry written in English and is jointly administered by the Department of English, University of Hyderabad. This year a jury, consisting of Goa-based poet Manohar Shetty and English literature scholars at University of Hyderabad Prof. Narayan Chandran and Dr. Sindhu Menon, arrived at a decision after sifting through entries from about 150 poets in the age group of 20-40 years from all over the country.
The Srinivas Rayaprol Literary Trust was started in the year 2000 to perpetuate the memory of the poet, Srinivas Rayaprol (a.k.a. R.S. Marthandam, 1925-1998), who was one of the significant personalities of the early Indian English Poetry in India. The inaugural prize was awarded in 2009 to Aditi Machado and, subsequently, to Hemant Mohapatra (2010), Aditi Rao (2011), and Tushar Jain (2012).
The award, consisting of a citation and cash prize of Rs.10,000 will be presented to the winner at a literary event to be organized soon in Hyderabad.