Haider Akbar Khan Rono, Panna Kaiser among 15 winners of Bangla Academy awards

Veteran politician Haider Akbar Khan Rono and Panna Kaiser, wife of martyred intellectual Shahidullah Kaiser, have been named among 15 winners of this year’s Bangla Academy Literary Award.

The academy released the list on Sunday, saying Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will distribute the awards at the inauguration of the Ekushey Book Fair in Dhaka.

The opening of the fair has been deferred by two weeks to Feb 15 this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Panna won the award for her research works on the 1971 Liberation War.

The winners include Asad Mannan and Bimal Guha for poetry, Jharna Rahman and Biswajit Chowdhury for fiction writing, Hosenuddin Hosein for article writing or research, Aminur Rahman and Rafique-um-Munir Chowdhury for translation, Sadhana Ahmed for playwriting and Rafiqur Rashid for children’s literature.

Harun-Or-Rashid won the award for research on Bangabandhu, Shubhagata Choudhury for science and science fiction writing, Sufia Khatun and Haider Akbar Khan Rono for autobiography or travelogue, and Aminur Rahman Sultan for folklore.