Helal Hafiz. Photo: Pavel Rahman

The Bangla Academy award winners have been announced today in the wake of the Ekushey Book Fair which is set to start from the beginning of February.
For the first time, Bangla Academy announced the names of the winners before the book fair.
Helal Hafiz won the prize for poetry this year while Purabi Basu for literature.
Other winners include Mofizul Haq for essays, Jasmin Chowdhury and Provangshu Tripura won the prize for research related works.
Kaiser Haq won the prize for translation, Mahfuzur Rahman for autobiography/memoirs/travelogue and Shahidul Islam for writings on science, technology and environment.
For children’s literature, Kaiser Chowdhury and Aslam Sunny won the prize while Harun Habib won it for Liberation War-related writings.
This is the first time an indigenous person - Provangshu Tripura -- won the Bangla Academy prize for research.
Prof Shamsuzzaman Khan, director general of Bangla Academy, said for the benefit of the readers and the writers, the prizes were announced before the start of the book fair this year.
“This will give the readers a chance to evaluate the winners for themselves and the writers will also benefit from the response during the fair,” he said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will hand over the certificate and prize money to the winners during the inauguration of the Ekushey Book Fair on February 1.