New Delhi, May 24 (IANS): The 2022 Kalinga Literary Festival (KLF) Book Awards are now open for nominations. The awards have been instituted to recognise and celebrate prolific and inspiring writers and poets, and an international jury has been instituted to nominate and finalise the awardees.

The awardees will be chosen keeping in mind their contribution to their specific language and genre, as well as the contemporary appeal and relevance of their work.

From this year onwards, KLF will give awards in 11 regional languages: Odia, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Nepali, Bengali, Assamese, Gujarati and Maithili.

Rashmi Ranjan Parida, Founder and President of KLF highlighted the need to focus on literature, especially history, Indic Literature, music, dance, and spiritual literature. He expressed happiness about the huge positive response that the last seven editions of KLF have received from audiences across India and the world.

The book awards ceremony will be held every year during the annual KLF held in Bhubaneswar.

Books must have been published in the calendar years 2021 or 2022. Submissions in each category are assessed by an independent jury based on overall content, quality of design and production.

The award consists of a prize, a trophy and a specially designed citation for display on the award-winning books.

The shortlisted titles in each category will be released in early October. The winners will be announced by October end of 2022.

Different categories for the awards include 'Fiction Book Award' (three awards), 'Non-Fiction Book Award' (three), 'Poetry Book Award' (three), 'Women/Dalit/Tribal Literature Book Award' (two), Children Book Award (two), Business Book Award (two), Translation Book Award (two), Debut Book Award (one), Lifestyle & Emerging Trend Book Award (one),

KLF Bhasa Book Award: Odia, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Nepali, Bengali, Assamese, Gujarati, Maithili (One book for each language) and Special Citation (Selected by KLF team).