Hindi litterateur Kamal Kishore Goyanka selected for prestigious Vyas Samman awards

Eminent Hindi litterateur Kamal Kishore Goyanka has been selected for the prestigious Vyas Samman for 2014 for his book 'Premchand Kee Kahaniyo Kaa Kaalkramanusar' which is a critical study of short stories of the twentieth century author.

Instituted by the K K Birla Foundation in 1991, the award is given annually for an outstanding literary work in Hindi published during the past 10 years. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 2.5 lakh. 'Premchand Kee Kahaniyo Kaa Kaalkramanusar,' published in 2012, is a chronological study of short stories of Premchand, regarded as one of the foremost Hindi writers of the early twentieth century.

"The book is a unique research work because for the first time the author has studied all available short stories of Premchand according to the chronological order of their writing," the K K Birla Foundation said. It said readers of the book can easily understand the 'sociological and psychological world' of more than two thousand characters created by Premchand in his short stories.

The selection for the award has been made by a committee headed by noted writer and former head of Lucknow University's Department of Hindi, Surya Prasad Dixit. 76-year-old Goyanka has around 50 books to his credit out of these almost half are related to Premchand. He was born on October 11, 1938 in Buland Shahar district in Uttar Pradesh.