Literary Awards: Jnanpith, Booker & Sahitya Akademi
Literary awards honor exceptional authorship and translation across languages. In India, the Jnanpith Award, instituted in 1961 by the Bharatiya Jnanpith trust, is the highest literary honour conferred for outstanding contributions to Indian literature in languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution and English. Malayalam poet G. Sankara Kurup was the inaugural recipient in 1965 for 'Odakkuzhal', and Ashapoorna Devi became the first woman recipient in 1976. The Sahitya Akademi Award, founded in 1954, recognizes annual literary works across 24 recognized languages. Globally, the Booker Prize (established in 1969 for English novels) was awarded to Indian authors Salman Rushdie (1981), Arundhati Roy (1997), Kiran Desai (2006), and Aravind Adiga (2008), while Geetanjali Shree won the 2022 International Booker Prize for 'Tomb of Sand'.
Key Concepts & Examination Highlights
- The Jnanpith Award was established in 1961; G. Sankara Kurup won the inaugural award in 1965 for his Malayalam poetry collection Odakkuzhal.
- Ashapoorna Devi was the first female writer to win the Jnanpith Award in 1976 for her Bengali novel Pratham Pratishruti.
- Arundhati Roy became the first Indian citizen to win the Booker Prize in 1997 for The God of Small Things.
- Geetanjali Shree and translator Daisy Rockwell won the International Booker Prize in 2022 for Tomb of Sand (Ret Samadhi).
- The Sahitya Akademi confers annual literary awards across 24 languages, including the 22 Eighth Schedule languages plus English and Rajasthani.