Daijiworld Media Network - Cancona

Cancona (Goa), Dec 17: Konkani's budding poetess Wilma Bantwal's debut Konkani poetry collection "Mukhddim" was released at Sri Mallikarjuna Mahavidyalay, Cancona, Goa on December 13.

Kannada writer Vivek Shanbhogue released the book during the occasion of 16th Youth Konkani Literary Conference in the presence of Nutan Sakhardande, president, youth conference, Pundalik Naik, president, Goa Konkani Akademi, Purnananda Chari, working president of the conference and Melvyn Rodrigues, Sahitya Akademi Award winning poet from Mangaluru.

It is a practice to publish one book each year during the conference and this was for the first time that a youngster outside Goa was chosen for this honour.

The book contains 52 poems by the poetess on various themes especially on women centric subjects. It is in Devnagari script and poet Melvyn Rodrigues has written the foreword. Goa Konkani Akademi is the publisher of this book.

A rank holder in mathematics, Wilma Bantwal works as a lecturer at Canara Engineering College, Benjanapadavu, Mangaluru. She has won the Kittall Yuva Puraskar for the year 2013.