‘A Slice of Night’ by Gayatribala Panda released

Bhubaneswar: ‘A Slice of Night’, English translation of an anthology of Odia poems by eminent author and poet Dr. Gayatribala Panda, was released at the sixth Odisha Art and Literature Festival held here recently.

The book, published by Dhauli Books, was released by eminent English and Bengali author Kunal Basu. Another English translation of Dr. Panda’s Odia poems titled ‘Grandma and Other Poems’ and published by Authors Press of New Delhi, had been released earlier.

The poems of Dr. Panda, presently head of the Centre for Preservation, Propagation and Restoration of Ancient Culture and Heritage of India (PPRACHIN), run by Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SOA), were translated into English by eminent poet Manua Das.

In the literary field for more than three decades, Dr. Panda has 18 collections of poem, two collections of short stories, four novels and a collection of essays to her credit till now. She had won the Youth Award of the Kendriya Sahitya Akademi in 2011.

She had also been presented with the Rajya Yuva Purashkar, Utkal Sahitya Samaj Yuva Purashkar, Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Purashkar, Fakir Mohan Sahitya Parishad Purashkar, Kadambini Kabita Samman, Sarala Kabya Samman besides being nominated in the list of Times Power Women 2021.

Dr. Panda was also the first Odia writer to be invited as ‘Guest Writer’ to the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi where she spent 17 days. She was also chosen among the top 10 young writers of the country by the Indian Express newspaper in 2021.