UoH doctoral student bags Rayaprol prize

Hyderabad: Debarshi Mitra, a 22-year old doctoral student in Physics, is the winner of this year’s prestigious Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize. He was chosen among 100 contestants from across the country by a jury consisting of Arvind Krishna Mehrotra and two faculty members from the English department at University of Hyderabad, Anna Kurian and Sirisha Telugu.The award consisting of a citation and cash prize of Rs 15,000 was presented by the Vice-Chancellor of Central University of Orissa, Prof. Satchidananda Mohanty to the winner at the U oH on Friday.

Debarshi had his debut book of poems ' Eternal Migrant' published in May 2016 by Writers Workshop. His works have previously appeared in anthologies like Kaafiyana and in literary magazines like ‘ The Scarlet Leaf Review’, ’Thumbprint', ' The Punch Magazine' , 'The Poet Community,' and 'Leaves of Ink' among others.

His second collection of poems, ‘Spare Change’ is to hit the stands in 2018. He was the recipient of the runner up prize for The Wingword Poetry Contest, 2017. 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 recognise 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, UoH.