The annual Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize (RTLP) for this year has been cancelled. It will now merge with RTLP 2022 to take place in New Delhi in October 2022.
TagorePrize has announced the merger of RTLP 2021 and 2022. The decision to cancel the RTLP 2021 as a single annual event and to merge it together with RTLP 2022 has been made after a careful consideration and much reluctance.
TagorePrize also announced call for entries for both the years together. It will host an annual ceremony in-person in New Delhi in October 2022.
The decision of merging the two prizes has not been taken lightly, and the organisation emphasised that it did everything in its power to prevent it, however, the pandemic hadn't spared anybody.
Peter Bundalo, Founder, RTLP said, “The disruption has affected not only the publishing and book industry whose participation in the nominations was thus, enormously and regrettably curbed, but also the Tagore Prize organisation, its staff, and its judging board.”
“We feel a vast responsibility toward our nominees and Tagore Prize community, and by merging RTLP 2021 with 2022 we are reinforcing our commitment to our primary purpose, to maintain our artistic and literary standards high and uncompromised at any cost,” he added.
Every year, the RTLP is hosted with awarding ceremony and shares ideas and aims with TagorePrize community. Over the course of the coming months and with due regard to COVID-19 health and safety regulations, possibility will explored for hosting an annual ceremony in-person in New Delhi in October 2022.
TagorePrize was founded and launched in 2018 with a strong vision to be a platform and a vehicle for improving and inspiring World Peace, Literature, Art Education.