Who was the first recipient of the Jnanpith Award?
- A.G. Sankara Kurup
- B.Sumitranandan Pant
- C.Tarashankar Bandopadhyay
- D.Kuvempu
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is A, G. Sankara Kurup. The Malayalam poet received the first Jnanpith Award, for the year 1965, for his collection of poems Odakkuzhal, meaning the reed flute. In those early years the award was given for one outstanding work rather than for a lifetime of writing, a practice that changed in 1982.
Option B, Sumitranandan Pant, received the Jnanpith for 1968 for Chidambara and was the first Hindi writer to be honoured, not the first of all. Option C, Tarashankar Bandopadhyay, won for 1966 for the Bengali novel Ganadevata, making him the second recipient and the first in Bengali. Option D, Kuvempu, the pen name of K. V. Puttappa, won for 1967 for the Kannada epic Sri Ramayana Darshanam and was the first Kannada writer honoured. The four are the first four laureates in order, so learning the sequence Kurup, Bandopadhyay, Kuvempu, Pant covers several possible questions at once.
Read the full article: Jnanpith and Sahitya Akademi: Awards and Winners
Practice Questions
View allWho among the following was awarded the 55th Jnanpith Award?
- A.Amitav Ghosh
- B.Raghuveer Chaudhari
- C.Chandrashekhara Kambara
- D.Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri
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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.
Read the full explanation →In which year was the Jnanpith Award instituted?
- A.1944
- B.1954
- C.1961
- D.1965
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The Jnanpith Award was instituted in 1961 by Bharatiya Jnanpith, and it is regarded as the highest literary honour given in India.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first woman writer to receive the Jnanpith Award?
- A.Mahadevi Verma
- B.Ashapurna Devi
- C.Amrita Pritam
- D.Mahashweta Devi
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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.
Read the full explanation →A recipient of the Jnanpith Award is presented with a bronze statue of which figure?
- A.Vagdevi, the goddess Saraswati
- B.Nataraja
- C.Goddess Lakshmi
- D.Gautama Buddha
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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.
Read the full explanation →Who was the first writer in the English language to be awarded the Jnanpith?
- A.Arundhati Roy
- B.R. K. Narayan
- C.Amitav Ghosh
- D.Vikram Seth
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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.
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