New Delhi, Dec 17  Novelists Cyrus Mistry and K R Meera and poet Ramdarash Mishra were among the winners of Sahitya Akademi award announced here on Thursday.

Six books of short stories, six of poetry, four novels, two books each of essays, criticism and plays and one of memoirs have won Sahitya Akademi awards, an official release said.

The awards were recommended by distinguished jury members representing 23 Indian languages and approved by the executive board of the Akademi.

Famous poets honoured with the award for 2015 are Brajendra Kumar Brahma (Bodo), Dhian Singh (Dogri), Ramdarash Mishra (Hindi), K.V. Tirumalesh (Kannada), Kshetri Rajan (Manipuri) and Ram Shankar Awasthi (Sanskrit).

Six writers awarded for their short stories are Kula Saikia (Assamese), Man Mohan Jha (Maithili), Gupta Pradhan (Nepali), Bibhuti Pattanaik (Odia), Maya Rahi (Sindhi) and Volga (Telugu).

The award winning novelists are Cyrus Mistry (English), Jaswinder Singh (Punjabi) and Madhu Acharya 'Ashawadi' (Rajasthani).

Rasik Shah (Gujrati) and A. Madhavan (Tamil) have been awarded for their essays, Uday Bhembre (Konkani), Rabilal Tudu (Santali) for their plays, Bashir Bhadarwahi (Kashmiri) and Shamim Tariq (Urdu) for their books on criticism and Arun Khopkar (Marathi) for his book on memoirs.

The award in Bengali will be announced later.