Who is the first writer in English to have won the Jnanpith award?

Jnanpith Award is the oldest and the highest Indian literary award presented annually by the Bharatiya Jnanpith to an author for their “outstanding contribution towards literature”. Instituted in 1961, the award is bestowed only on Indian writers writing in Indian languages included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and English, with no posthumous conferral.

In a first, the prestigious literary award Jananpith has been conferred to an English writer Amitav Ghosh. The 1956, Kolkata-born author was described as a “path-breaking novelist” by Bharatiya Jnanpith. 

Born in Kolkata in 1956 to a Bengali Hindu family, the 62-year-old author currently lives in New York with his wife Deborah Baker.

Amitav Ghosh, who spent his formative years in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria.

Ghosh is also recipient of the Padma Shri and Sahitya Akademi Award.

The winner gets a cash prize along with a citation and a bronze replica of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of learning.

In 1965, famous Malayalam writer G Sankara Kurup became the first winner of Jnanpith Award.

Picture Credit : Google

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