The Prize is administered by the the Srinivas Rayaprol Trust and the Department of English, University of Hyderabad
Aishwarya Iyer, a freelance editor based in Bengaluru, is the winner of this year’s prestigious Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize. She was chosen from a field of close to 300 contestants by a jury consisting of poet and editor of the literary journal, Almost Island, Vivek Narayanan and professors, Mohan Ramanan and Sukhbir Singh of University of Hyderabad.
Aishwarya was raised in India and Bahrain, and studied literature at the universities of Mumbai, Jadavpur, and Pennsylvania. She has worked as a researcher, teacher, and editor. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as QLRS, Eclectica, Kindle Magazine, Sweet Magazine, and on the Tumblr of Berfrois. She is currently working on her first manuscript of poetry.
Recognised as a significant award for creative writing in India, the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize was instituted by the Hyderabad-based Srinivas Rayaprol Literary Trust to recognize excellence in poetry written in English by poets in the age group of 20-40 years. The Prize is jointly administered by the Department of English, University of Hyderabad. This year, among those shortlisted by the jury for the prize include: Mantra Mukim, Neepa Sarkar, and Arul Benito Gerard.
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 important contributors to 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), Tushar Jain (2012), Mihir Vatsa (2013), and Ranjani Murali (2014). Eminent poets like Jeet Thayil, Sudeep Sen, Keki Daruwalla, Arundhati Subramanian, Manohar Shetty, and Ranjit Hoskote have been associated with the prize.
The award, consisting of a citation and cash prize of Rs.15,000/- will be presented to the winner at a literary event to be held in Hyderabad.