IAS officer Ranendra Kumar, who is more popular as a Hindi writer, will receive the Sri Lal Shukla Smriti IFFCO Sahitya Samman this year for his contribution to literature.

Ranendra (60), who uses his initial as a writer, will receive, besides a citation and a memento, a cheque for Rs 11 lakh as the 10th recipient of the prestigious award, instituted in 2011, at a function in Delhi on January 31 next year.

“Ranendra has chosen tribal life as the theme of his writings and deeply observed social, economic and cultural changes the tribal society underwent in this age of globalisation,” the selection committee observed in a release issued on Saturday.

Besides a number of collections of poems and short stories, Ranendra has edited a four-part Jharkhand Encyclopedia and has three novels to his credit.

While his first novel, Gungi Rulai ka Chorus, was published in 1988, the second, Global Gaon Ke Devta, was published by Bharatiya Gyanpeeth in 2006. His third novel, Gayab Hota Desh, was published by Penguin Books in 2014.

“Thank you, thank all,” said Ranendra when the Telegraph Online contacted him on Saturday. He said he would go to Delhi to receive the award personally.

This, however, is not the only award he has won. Ranendra won the J C Joshi Smriti Janpriya Lekhak Samman in 2010 for his novel, Global Gaon ke Devta, the Banarasi Prasad Bhojpuri Samman in 2013, the newly instituted Vimla Devi Smriti Samman and the Banmali Katha Samman in 2019.

“Ranendra is one of those rare non-tribal writers who took immense interest to understand tribal issues and express them in his writings,” said Mahadev Toppo, another well-known Hindi writer.

As director of Ranchi’s Ram Dayal Munda Tribal Research Institute, Ranendra also organised events to give a platform to deserving tribal writers and artists from across the country, he added.