From Jnanpith Award to Booker Prize, here’s a list of major literary honours

Honours not only boost an author’s confidence, but also help in bringing important and at times, lesser-known works in the spotlight. In 2021, a number of debut authors were published and appreciated for their diversity and thought. We bring you major literary honours in India and globally.

Crossword Book Awards

The Indian Award recognises and rewards good writing and promotes Indian authors and their books. It was established in 1998 by Indian book retailer Crossword with an aim to have a prize equivalent to Western literary honours like the Pulitzer Prize. Initially, it was conceived as a single award for a fiction written in English by an Indian but in the year 2000, it started to recognise works of fiction written in any Indian language and translated into English. In 2010, the honour added a prize for children’s literature as well. Authors like Kiran Desai, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh have won the prize previously. Winners in the jury category are awarded Rs 3,00,000 and those in the popular choice category are awarded Rs 1,00,000. In 2020, Madhuri Vijay was announced the winner for her book on Kashmir The Far Field.

Booker Prize

A leading literary award in English, the prize awards outstanding work of fiction. It awards novels written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. The winner receives £50,000 and £2,500 is awarded to each of the six shortlisted authors. Both the winner and the shortlisted authors are guaranteed a global readership. In 2021, The Promise written by Damon Galgut was the winner.

JCB Prize for Literature

The Rs 25-lakh award is presented each year to an Indian author’s distinguished work of fiction. It celebrates Indian writing, and brings contemporary Indian literature on the global platform for readers to discover. It celebrates the diversity of language in Indian literature by awarding translators as well that help in taking a work to a larger readership. Every year, a jury of prominent individuals from various areas of Indian social and intellectual life is appointed to read every novel entered for the Prize and then works are longlisted (10 books) and shortlisted (five books), respectively, before the winner is announced. The shortlisted authors receive Rs 1 lakh, their translators Rs 50,000 and the winning author gets Rs 25 lakh and its translator (if any) Rs 10 lakh. The trophy was designed by artist duo Thukral & Tagra in 2018. The JCB Prize for Literature is administered by the not-for-profit company JCB Literature Foundation. In 2021, M Mukundan’s Delhi: A Soliloquy was the winner.

Jnanpith Award

Jnanpith Award is an annual Indian award which is the highest literary award in the country. It honours creative literary writing in any of the 22 “scheduled languages” recognised in the Indian Constitution. Sponsored by cultural organisation Bharatiya Jnanpith, the prize has a citation, cash award and a bronze replica of Saraswati, the goddess of learning. It was instituted in 1961 and the first award was conferred in 1965. Till about 1982, the award was presented for a specific work. Post 1982, it was awarded for a writer’s contribution to literature. On April 11 this year, Assamese poet Nilamani Phookan was conferred the 56th Jnanpith Award at a ceremony.

Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize awards achievements in newspapers, magazines, online platforms, journalism, literature and musical compositions in the United States. It was initiated in 1917 through the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made fortune as a newspaper publisher. The Prize is administered by Columbia University. In April this year, Marjorie Miller, vice-president and global enterprise editor at The Associated Press, has been appointed as the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes. For this year, the winners and nominated finalists will be announced on May 9. The winners for the year 2021 included Megha Rajagopalan for International Reporting, Ed Yong for Explanatory Reporting, Nadja Drost for Feature Writing, among others. Each winner receives a certificate and a cash prize of $15,000.

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prize is one of the most prestigious prices award in categories like Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Medicine and Economic Sciences. It was in 1895 that Alfred Nobel signed his will, giving away his wealth to a series of prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. In 1968, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was established by Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank). In 2021, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah for his line of work. Mother Teresa, Amartya Sen, Kailash Satyarthi, Rabindranath Tagore, Abhijit Banerjee are some Indians who have won the award.

Sahitya Akademi Award

The Indian literary honour is conferred by India’s National Academy of Letters annually to the Indian works in any of its languages. It was established in 1954 and the prize comprises a plaque designed by Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray and a cash prize of Rs 1,00,000. It recognises and promotes excellence in Indian writing. This year, the award was presented to 24 winners, including Anuradha Sarma Pujari, Namita Gokhale, among others.