Noted English writer Amitav Ghosh was on December 14, 2018 honoured with 54th Jnanpith Award, a literary award given to an author for "outstanding contribution towards literature".
The decision was taken during a meeting of Jnanpith Selection Board chaired by eminent novelist, scholar and Jnanpith laureate Pratibha Ray.
As per Bharatiya Jnanpith, "Amitav Ghosh is a path- breaking novelist. In his novels, Ghosh treads through historical settings to the modern era and weaves a space where the past connects with the present in relevant ways..."
Ghosh is known for a series of novels such as Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, and the Ibis Trilogy -- Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire that chronicle the trade between India and China run by the then East India Company.
• Amitav Ghosh is an Indian-American author best known for his work in English fiction. • He was educated at the all-boys The Doon School where he edited The Doon School Weekly. His contemporaries at Doon included author Vikram Seth and Ram Guha. • He received degrees from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, and Delhi School of Economics. • He then won the Inlaks Foundation scholarship to complete a D. Phil. in social anthropology at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, under the supervision of Peter Lienhardt. • In 1986, he wrote his debut novel titled The Circle of Reason. • His other famous works in fiction are The Shadow Lines, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, Sea of Poppies, among others. • His notable non-fiction writings are In an Antique Land, Dancing in Cambodia and at Large in Burma, Countdown, and The Imam and the Indian. • His book The Circle of Reason won the Prix Medicis etranger, one of France's top literary awards. • The Shadow Lines won the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Ananda Puraskar. • Sea of Poppies was shortlisted for the 2008 Man Booker Prize. • His most recent book, The Great Derangement; Climate Change and the Unthinkable, a work of non-fiction, was released in 2016. • The Government of India awarded him the civilian honour of Padma Shri in 2007. |
About Jnanpith Award
• Established in 1961, the Jnanpith Award is the highest literary award of India.
• The award is bestowed only on Indian writers writing in any of the 22 Indian languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and English.
• It is presented annually by the Bharatiya Jnanpith Trust to an author for their "outstanding contribution towards literature". It is not conferred posthumously.
• Prior to 1982, the award was only conferred for a single work by a writer, however, after 1982 the award recognised writers’ lifetime contribution to Indian literature.
• The first recipient of the award was the Malayalam writer G. Sankara Kurup, who received it in 1965 for his collection of poems, Odakkuzhal.
• Bengali writer, Ashapoorna Devi was the first woman novelist to win the award in 1976 for her 1965 novel Pratham Pratisruti.
• The 2017 Jnanpith award was awarded to Krishna Sobti, renowned Hindi litterateur.
Comments
All Comments (0)
Join the conversation