SAARC Literary Award is an annual award conferred by the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL) since 2001 Shamshur Rahman, Mahasweta Devi, Jayanta Mahapatra, Abhi Subedi, Mark Tully, Sitakant Mahapatra, Uday Prakash, Suman Pokhrel, and Abhay K have been some of the recipients of this award. Nepali poet, lyricist, and translator Suman Pokhrel is only writer to have been given this award twice.

Uday Prakash is a Hindi poet, scholar, journalist, translator and short story writer from India. He has worked as administrator, editor, researcher, and TV director. He writes for major dailies and periodicals as a freelancer. He has also received several awards for his collection of short stories and poems. With Mohan Das he received Sahitya Academi Awards in 2011. He is the first author to return his Sahitya Akademi award on September 3, 2015 against the killing of M. M. Kalburgi that initiated a storm of national protests by writers, artists,scholars and intellectuals.