Renowned English writer Amitav Ghosh selected for Jnanpith Award, 2018

Renowned English fiction writer Amitav Ghosh has been selected for Jnanpith award, 2018. This has been announced by Jnanpith Selection Board on 14 December 2018.

About Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He is an alumnus of Doon School, Dehradun, St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University and Delhi School of Economics. He was awarded Padma Shri in 2007 and was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009. He was also named Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow in 2015.

His works

The Circle of Reason (1986) was his first novel. Other fiction works include  The Shadow Lines (1988), The Calcutta Chromosome (1995), The Glass Palace (2000), The Hungry Tide (2004). He has also written three works as a part of The Ibis trology of which the first volume is Sea of Poppies (2008); second volume is River of Smoke (2011); and third volume is Flood of Fire (2015).
His notable non-fiction works include Antique Land (1992), Dancing in Cambodia and at Large in Burma (1998), Countdown (1999), and The Imam and the Indian (2002), The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) etc.

About Jnanpith Award

Jnanpith award was instituted in 1961. Via this award, the Bhartiya Jnanpith recognises Indian litterateurs who write in one of the 22 Indian languages listed in the Schedule Eight of the Indian Constitution. The winners receive a cash prize, a citation and a bronze replica of Goddess Saraswati. Famour Malyalam writer G.S. Kurup was first winner of Jnanpith award.