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56th & 57th Jnanpith Award

  • 09 Dec 2021

Assamese poet Nilmani Phookan and Konkani writer Damodar Mauzo has been conferred with the 56th and 57th Jnanpith Award respectively.

Damodar Mauzo

  • Mauzo is a short story writer, novelist, columnist and screenplay writer.
  • Mauzo is the second Konkani writer to receive the highest literary award, after Ravindra Kelekar had won the 42nd Jnanpith award 2006.
  • He was awarded Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for his novel ‘Karmelin’.
  • He is notable for his novels, such as Karmelin, and Tsunami Simon, and short stories, such as Teresa’s Man and Other Stories from Goa. His books have been translated into several Indian languages. His first collection of short stories was Ganthon, published in 1971.

Nilmani Phookan Jr

  • Phookan is the third Assamese writer to receive the Jnanpith. Previous awardees were Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya in 1979 and Mamoni Raisom Goswami in 2000.
  • He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1990 and received the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 2002.
  • Phookan is a poet of renown, having written Surya Henu Nami Ahe Ei Nodiyedi, Gulapi Jamur Lagna, and Kobita. Primarily a poet, he also writes prose and is a pioneering art critic from Assam, with a focus on folklore and folk art.
  • He was awarded the 1981 Sahitya Akademi Award in Assamese for his poetry collection, Kavita (Kobita)

About the 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.
  • The first recipient of the award was the Malayalam writer G. Sankara Kurup who received the award in 1965 for his collection of poems, Odakkuzhal (The Bamboo Flute).
  • In 1976, Bengali novelist Ashapoorna Devi became the first woman to win the award and was honoured for the 1965 novel Prothom Protishruti (The First Promise), the first in a trilogy.