Books & Authors Mixed Quiz: Set 6

The correct answer is B, Gitanjali, a collection of devotional poems that Tagore himself rendered into English prose poetry. The Nobel Prize for Literature came to him in 1913 for these verses, the citation praising their sensitive and beautiful language, and it made him the first Asian Nobel laureate.

Option A, Gora, is one of Tagore's major novels, a long work about identity and reform in Bengal, but not the book the prize was given for. Option C, The Home and the World, the English title of Ghare Baire, is another of his novels, later filmed by Satyajit Ray. Option D, Chokher Bali, is an early novel of his about widowhood and desire. All three are genuine works of Tagore, which is what makes the options plausible, but only Gitanjali carried him to the Nobel.

The correct answer is D, 6. The Nobel Prize is awarded every year in six categories: Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, Peace and Economic Sciences. The first five were named in the will of Alfred Nobel and have been given since 1901, while the prize in Economic Sciences was instituted by the Sveriges Riksbank in 1968 and awarded for the first time in 1969.

Option A, 5, is the number of categories in Nobel's own will and is therefore the strongest distractor, but the count asked for today includes economics. Option B, 7, is one more than the list and matches no prize category. Option C, 4, would leave out two of the sciences altogether. The Peace Prize among the six is decided in Norway and presented at Oslo, while the other five are presented at Stockholm on 10 December each year.

The correct answer is B, Ashapurna Devi. The Bengali novelist received the Jnanpith for the year 1976 for Pratham Pratishruti, the first book of a trilogy about three generations of women in a Bengali household, and she was the first woman to be honoured with the award.

Option A, Mahadevi Verma, the Hindi poet of the Chhayavaad movement, won the Jnanpith for 1982 for Yama and was the first Hindi woman writer honoured, but she came six years after Ashapurna Devi. Option C, Amrita Pritam, won for 1981 and was the first Punjabi writer honoured with the Jnanpith; she was also the first woman to win a Sahitya Akademi Award, back in 1956, and that earlier first is what tempts candidates towards her here. Option D, Mahashweta Devi, the Bengali writer and activist, won for 1996. All four are women laureates, so the question turns purely on the order of years.

The correct answer is D, Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri. The Malayalam poet, known simply as Akkitham, received the 55th Jnanpith Award, given for the year 2019. He was the sixth Malayalam writer to be honoured, the language whose G. Sankara Kurup had won the very first Jnanpith for 1965.

Option A, Amitav Ghosh, won the 54th Jnanpith, for 2018, and was the first writer in English to receive it, English having become an eligible language only in 2013. Option B, Raghuveer Chaudhari, is a Gujarati novelist and poet who won the 51st award, for 2015. Option C, Chandrashekhara Kambara, is the Kannada playwright and poet who won the 53rd award, for 2017. All four are genuine Jnanpith laureates from consecutive years, which is what makes the question testing, and the safe way to answer it is to anchor one pair in memory, such as Amitav Ghosh with 2018, and count forward or back from there.

The correct answer is C, 1930. Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was given the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 for his work on the scattering of light and for the effect that carries his name, by which light passing through a transparent medium changes in wavelength. He was the first Indian and the first Asian to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences.

Option A, 1913, is the year of Tagore's Nobel Prize for Literature, not of Raman's. Option B, 1928, is the year in which Raman announced the discovery itself, on 28 February, a date observed in India as National Science Day; the prize followed two years later. Option D, 1947, is the year of independence and has nothing to do with the award. Raman was also given the Bharat Ratna in 1954, in the first list of that honour.

The correct answer is A, Shashi Tharoor. Kerala: God's Own Country is an illustrated book on the land, people and culture of Kerala, written by Shashi Tharoor with photographs by M.F. Husain and brought out in 2009. Tharoor, a former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and later a Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, has written many other books, among them The Great Indian Novel, India: From Midnight to the Millennium, An Era of Darkness and Why I Am a Hindu. 'God's Own Country' is also the tourism tagline of Kerala. Option B is wrong because Jeet Thayil is a poet and novelist known for Narcopolis, which reached the Booker shortlist in 2012. Option C is wrong because Sudha Murthy writes fiction and essays such as Wise and Otherwise, Dollar Bahu and Three Thousand Stitches. Option D is wrong because Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai was a Malayalam novelist who wrote Chemmeen and won the Jnanpith Award in 1984. Exam tip: Tharoor - The Great Indian Novel; Thakazhi - Chemmeen; Thayil - Narcopolis.

The correct answer is A, Vagdevi, the goddess Saraswati. Along with a citation and a cash prize, every Jnanpith laureate receives a bronze replica of Vagdevi, Saraswati as the goddess of speech and learning, which is a fitting emblem for a literary honour and a detail asked directly in objective papers.

Option B, Nataraja, the dancing form of Shiva, is associated with the Sangeet Natak Akademi and with Indian classical dance, not with the Jnanpith. Option C, the goddess Lakshmi, stands for wealth and prosperity and appears on no major literary award. Option D, Gautama Buddha, appears on various peace and scholarship honours but not on this one, though the Jain family that founded Bharatiya Jnanpith gives the trust its strong link with Indian philosophy. Contrast the statue with the Sahitya Akademi Award, whose winner receives an engraved copper plaque and a shawl rather than any statue.

The correct answer is C, Ocean Vuong. The Emperor of Gladness, released in May 2025, is a novel by the Vietnamese-American writer and poet Ocean Vuong. Vuong was born near Saigon in 1988 and came to the United States as a child refugee. He first drew notice for the poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds and then for the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, and he has held a MacArthur Fellowship; migration, memory and working-class life run through all his writing. A is wrong because Colum McCann is an Irish novelist, best known for Let the Great World Spin. B is wrong because Sharon Lee is an American science-fiction writer and not the author of this novel. D is wrong because Charlotte McConaghy is an Australian novelist, known for Migrations. Exam tip: Ocean Vuong - Night Sky with Exit Wounds, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and The Emperor of Gladness in 2025.

The correct answer is B, The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy's first novel, set in Kerala and built around the childhood of the twins Rahel and Estha. It won the Booker Prize in 1997, the fiftieth year of India's independence, and made her the first Indian woman to win the award.

Option A, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, is Roy's second novel, published twenty years later in 2017, and it did not win the Booker. Option C, The Inheritance of Loss, is Kiran Desai's novel, which won the Booker in 2006. Option D, A Suitable Boy, is Vikram Seth's long novel of 1993; for all its fame it never won the Booker Prize, and it is put among the options for exactly that reason.

The correct answer is B, Arundhati Roy. 'Mother Mary Comes to Me' is Arundhati Roy's memoir, published in September 2025, and it is built around her difficult, loving bond with her mother Mary Roy. Mary Roy was a teacher who founded a school in Kerala and won the 1986 Supreme Court case that gave Syrian Christian women an equal share in family property. Arundhati Roy herself won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel, 'The God of Small Things', and later wrote 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' along with many essays. A is wrong because Jhumpa Lahiri is known for 'Interpreter of Maladies', which won the Pulitzer Prize, and 'The Namesake'. C is wrong because Vikram Seth wrote 'A Suitable Boy' and 'The Golden Gate'. D is wrong because Chetan Bhagat writes popular novels such as 'Five Point Someone' and 'Half Girlfriend'. Exam tip: Arundhati Roy — 'The God of Small Things', Booker Prize 1997.

The correct answer is C, Amitav Ghosh. English was not an eligible language for the Jnanpith until 2013, when it was added to the languages of the Eighth Schedule for the purpose of this award. Ghosh, the novelist of The Shadow Lines and the Ibis trilogy, received the 54th Jnanpith, for the year 2018, and was the first writer in English to be honoured.

Option A, Arundhati Roy, won the Booker Prize in 1997 for The God of Small Things but has not received the Jnanpith. Option B, R. K. Narayan, the creator of Malgudi, wrote before English became eligible and received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958 for The Guide instead. Option D, Vikram Seth, the author of A Suitable Boy, has also not received it. The neat way to remember the sequence is that eligibility changed in 2013 and the first English laureate followed five years later, in 2018.

The correct answer is C, Tennis. 'Ace Against Odds' is the autobiography of Sania Mirza, India's most successful woman tennis player, published in 2016 and written with her father Imran Mirza and Shivani Gupta. The title plays on 'ace', a serve the opponent cannot touch. Sania became the first Indian woman to win a WTA singles title, at Hyderabad in 2005, and went on to win six Grand Slam doubles titles, three in women's doubles with Martina Hingis and three in mixed doubles, and to become world number one in doubles in 2015. She received the Arjuna Award in 2004, the Khel Ratna in 2015 and the Padma Bhushan in 2016. A is wrong because the best-known shooting autobiography is Abhinav Bindra's 'A Shot at History'. B is wrong because badminton star Saina Nehwal's book is 'Playing to Win'. D is wrong because cricket autobiographies include Sachin Tendulkar's 'Playing It My Way'. Exam tip: Ace Against Odds = Sania Mirza (tennis); A Shot at History = Abhinav Bindra (shooting); Playing It My Way = Sachin Tendulkar (cricket).

The correct answer is C, Midnight's Children, the novel about Saleem Sinai, born at the exact hour of India's independence, which won the Booker Prize in 1981. It was later chosen as the Booker of Bookers in 1993 and again as the Best of the Booker in 2008, the only novel to be honoured in that way twice.

Option A, The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, was shortlisted for the Booker but did not win it; it won the Whitbread Award for a novel. Option B, Shame, published in 1983, was also shortlisted and lost. Option D, The Moor's Last Sigh, of 1995, won the Whitbread Book of the Year. All three are Rushdie's works, so the year 1981 and the title Midnight's Children must be remembered together.

The correct answer is C, The Man Who Knew Infinity. The book was written by Robert Kanigel about the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, so the writer and the subject are two different people, which makes it a biography. Ramanujan himself left no account of his life, and the book was built from letters, records and the recollections of those who knew him.

Option A, Long Walk to Freedom, was written by Nelson Mandela about his own life and is therefore an autobiography. Option B, Playing It My Way, is the cricketer Sachin Tendulkar's own account of his career and is likewise an autobiography. Option D, Wings of Fire, was written by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam with the help of Arun Tiwari, but the life described is Kalam's own, so the presence of a co-author does not turn it into a biography.

The correct answer is B, 1954. The Government of India set up the Sahitya Akademi on 12 March 1954 as the national academy for literature, and it works today as an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture with its headquarters at Rabindra Bhavan in New Delhi. Its first President was Jawaharlal Nehru.

Option A, 1947, is the year of Independence and not of the Akademi, though the three national academies for letters, for the performing arts and for the fine arts were all creations of the first decade after it. Option C, 1961, is the year the Jnanpith Award was instituted by a private trust and has nothing to do with the Akademi. Option D, 1972, is too late by nearly two decades. A useful memory hook is that the Sahitya Akademi and the Lalit Kala Akademi both belong to 1954, while the Sangeet Natak Akademi came a year earlier, in 1953.

The correct answer is B, Dadabhai Naoroji. In this book he argued that British rule was steadily transferring India's wealth to England through salaries, pensions, home charges and the profits of trade, an argument known as the drain of wealth theory. He is also called the Grand Old Man of India.

Option A, Romesh Chandra Dutt, wrote The Economic History of India and belongs to the same school of economic criticism, which makes him the strongest distractor. Option C, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, was a moderate leader and Gandhi's political mentor, known for his work in the Imperial Legislative Council and for the Servants of India Society rather than for this book. Option D, Mahadev Govind Ranade, was a social reformer and economist of the earlier generation. Naoroji goes with the drain theory, Dutt with the economic history.

The correct answer is B, Aravind Adiga, whose first novel The White Tiger won the Booker Prize in 2008. The book is told as a set of letters written by Balram Halwai, a driver who rises from a poor village to become a businessman in Bangalore, and it was later made into a film.

Option A, Amitav Ghosh, has written The Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace and the Ibis trilogy and was the first English language writer to be given the Jnanpith Award, but he has not won the Booker. Option C, Chetan Bhagat, is a popular novelist whose books have been filmed, yet he has never been a Booker winner. Option D, Jhumpa Lahiri, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000 for her short story collection Interpreter of Maladies, which is a different prize and a different country.

The correct answer is C, Jawaharlal Nehru. The Prime Minister was the first President of the Sahitya Akademi, elected when the academy was set up in 1954, and he held the office until his death in 1964. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan was its first Vice President and succeeded him as President.

Option A, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, was the first President of India and inaugurated several national institutions of the period, but he did not head the Akademi. Option B, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the philosopher who later became President of India, was the Akademi's first Vice President and its second President, which makes him the strongest distractor in the set. Option D, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, was the first Education Minister of India and the moving spirit behind the three national academies, and he was the first Chairman of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, so his name belongs to the same story but to a different chair.

The correct answer is C, The Inheritance of Loss, set partly in Kalimpong at the foot of the Himalayas and partly among Indian immigrants in New York. It won the Booker Prize in 2006, and Kiran Desai was at the time the youngest woman to have won the award.

Option A, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, is Kiran Desai's own first novel, published in 1998, which won the Betty Trask Award and not the Booker. Options B and D, Fasting, Feasting and Clear Light of Day, are novels by her mother Anita Desai, who was shortlisted for the Booker three times without ever winning it. The mother and daughter pair is a favourite of paper setters, so the two lists should be kept apart in your notes.

The correct answer is C, 24. The Sahitya Akademi recognises twenty-four languages and gives one award in each of them every year for the most outstanding book of literary merit, so roughly two dozen names are announced together. The twenty-four are the twenty-two languages of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution together with English and Rajasthani.

Option A, 18, was the number of languages in the Eighth Schedule before the 92nd Constitutional Amendment of 2003 added Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali, and it survives in older books. Option B, 22, is the present number of Eighth Schedule languages and so is the most tempting wrong answer; the Akademi's list is wider because it adds English and Rajasthani to it. Option D, 28, matches no list of languages in this context. For work in languages outside the twenty-four, the Akademi gives the Bhasha Samman, instituted in 1996.