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Following is an op-ed from Samaja. (Thanks to S. Karmee for the pointer.)

I personally feel that Odia has become too sanskritized and writings in Odia often do not use the words that are used by people in normal conversations. The Odia speaking people use a rich vocabulary of  words, which if used in the written literature will enrich Odia. In that regard I came across and bought the following two books published by the Odisha Sahitya Academy.

• Dakshina Odishara kathita Odia bhasha. By Dr. Satya Prakash Das.
• Paschima Odishara kathita odia bhasha. By Shri Gopabandhu Ratha.

Both make wonderful reading.

The following is from http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=1299-16.

The list of finalists is at http://www.commonwealthfoundation.com/news/news/detail.cfm?id=601. Following is from Samaja:

So far there have been five Sahitya Academy fellows from Orissa. The latest is Ramakanta Rath, who received the fellowship this year. The list of five (extracted from wikipedia) are:

• 1971: Kalindi Charan Panigrahi (1901–1991), Oriya poet, novelist, story writer, dramatist and essayist
• 1994: Kanhu Charan Mohanty (1906–1994), Oriya novelist
• 1996: Sachidananda Raut-Roy (1916–2004), Oriya short story writer and poet
• 2006: Manoj Das (1934), Oriya writer
• 2009: Ramakanta Rath (1934), Poet

At anytime there are at most 21 fellows. So currently there are two from Orissa.

Following is a report from Sambada on Ramakanta Rath receiving the fellowship.

There are three Jnanpith award winners from Orissa. They are:

• 1973 : Gopinath Mohanty for Paraja
• 1986 : Sachidananda Rout Roy
• 1993 : Sitakant Mahapatra

Following are excerpts from a Pioneer report:

Versatile literary critic, translator, book editor and former Professor of the Berhampur University, Sudarshan Acharya, was conferred the coveted Atibadi Jagannath Das award for literature for the year 2006 here on Tuesday.

The award, instituted by the Orissa Sahitya Akademi, is the State’s highest honour for literature, consisted of a cash prize of Rs 25,000 and a citation. …

Thirty prominent litterateurs were felicitated and awarded on the occasion for their contributions to Oriya literature.

The awards for the years 2003 went to Shanti Mohapatra (novel), Sadananda Tripathy (short story), Gopal Krushna Rath (poetry), Mihir Kumar Meher (drama and one-act play), Sulochana Das (essay and criticism), Hrudananda Ray (biography and travelogue), Suryamani Khuntia (translation), Birakishore Padhi (children’s literature) and Narayan Prasad Singh (lyrics). The winners for 2004 were Rashmi Roul (novel), Rajanikanta Mohanty (short story), Nrusingha Kumar Rath (poetry), Dilliswar Moharana (drama and one-act play), Baishnab Charan Mohanty (essay and literary criticism), Subash Chandra Mishra (biography and travel writing), Kanan Mishra (translation), Harihar Shukla (children’s literature) and Gurukrushna Goswami (lyrics).

Each of the awards carries a cash prize of Rs 10,000, besides citations.

The twelve litterateurs felicitated for the year 2006 were Bishnu Charan Mohanty (Bhubaneswar), Subodh Kumar Chatterjee (Cuttack), Prafulla Chandra Patnaik (Puri), Rabindra Kumar Praharaj (Bhubaneswar), Hadibandhu Mirdha (Bargarh), Arabinda Mohapatra (Sambalpur), Bhagaban Nayak Barma (Bhadrak), Sabitri Devi (Cuttack), Krushna Prasad Mohapatra (Bhubaneswar), Nityananda Nayak (Bhubaneswar), Bipin Behari Khamari (Bhubaneswar) and Purnamasi Jani (Phulbani). …

The Orissa government web site currently has the following classics in oDiA script.

• Sarala Mahabharata
• oDiA Bhagabata
• Chha maana aatha gunth

The site http://www.odia.org/ also has several books and pages in oDiA script.

• Gita Gobinda: By Jayadeba
• Taapoi: Khudurukuni
• Sabitri: Savitri Brata Katha
• Paita Mantra: Jajrubediya
• Kaluribenta: Kaluri Benta Katha
• Mo patha bahi
• oDiA cheat sheet

Various Oriya poem sites:

• The site http://www.orissainfoline.com/kabita.htm has some poems by Mayadhar Mansinha.
• Oriya Poetry: Kabighara

The Hindu has a nice rememberance of poet Mayadhar Mansingh. Following is a picture from that article.