List of Jnanpith Award Winners (2022 Updated)

Before we get into the list of Jnanpith Award, let us have a quick introduction about this award!

The Jnanpith Award (Jnanpith Award in Hindi) is the oldest and highest Indian literary award given annually by the Bharatiya Jnanpith to an author for his "outstanding contribution to literature".

Bhartiya Jnanpith was established in 1944 as a research and cultural institution by industrialist Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain of the Sahu Jain family, who in May 1961 to "Select the Best" plan to "Command National Prestige and International Standard". An idea was conceived to begin with. Book out of publications in Indian languages".

The award was instituted in 1961 and is given only to Indian writers writing in Indian languages, which are included in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India (22 languages) and there is no posthumous convention in English.

Jnanpith Award Winner : - 

Serial	Year	Recipients	Language
57th	2021	Damodar Mauzo	Konkani
56th	2020	Nilamani Phookan	Assamese
55th	2019	Akkitham Achuthan Namboothiri	Malayalam
54th	2018	Amitav Ghosh	English
53rd	2017	Krishna Sobti	Hindi
52nd	2016	Shankha Ghosh	Bengali
51st	2015	Raghuveer Chaudhari	Gujarati
50th	2014	Bhalchandra Nemade	Marathi
49th	2013	Kedarnath Singh	Hindi
48th	2012	Ravuri Bharadhwaja	Telugu
47th	2011	Pratibha Ray	Odia
46th	2010	Chandrashekhara Kambara	Kannada
45th	2009†	Amarkant	Hindi
45th	2009†	Srilal Sukla	Hindi
44th	2008	Akhlaq Mohammed Khan ‘Shahryar’	Urdu
43rd	2007	O. N. V. Kurup	Malayalam
42nd	2006†	Ravindra Kelekar	Konkani
42nd	2006†	Satya Vrat Shastri	Sanskrit
41st	2005	Kunwar Narayan	Hindi
40th	2004	Rehman Rahi	Kashmiri
39th	2003	Vinda Karandikar	Marathi
38th	2002	Jayakanthan	Tamil
37th	2001	Rajendra Shah	Gujarati
36th	2000	Mamoni Raisom Goswami	Assamese
35th	1999†	Nirmal Verma	Hindi
35th	1999†	Gurdial Singh	Punjabi
34th	1998	Girish Karnad	Kannada
33rd	1997	Ali Sardar Jafri	Urdu
32nd	1996	Mahasweta Devi	Bengali
31st	1995	M. T. Vasudevan Nair	Malayalam
30th	1994	U. R. Ananthamurthy	Kannada
29th	1993	Sitakant Mahapatra	Odia
28th	1992	Naresh Mehta	Hindi
27th	1991	Subhash Mukhopadhyay	Bengali
26th	1990	Vinayaka Krishna Gokak	Kannada
25th	1989	Qurratulain Hyder	Urdu
24th	1988	C. Narayana Reddy	Telugu
23rd	1987	Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar ‘Kusumagraj’	Marathi
22nd	1986	Sachidananda Routray	Odia
21st	1985	Pannalal Patel	Gujarati
20th	1984	Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai	Malayalam
19th	1983	Masti Venkatesha Iyengar	Kannada
18th	1982	Mahadevi Varma	Hindi
17th	1981	Amrita Pritam	Punjabi
16th	1980	S. K. Pottekkatt	Malayalam
15th	1979	Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya	Assamese
14th	1978	Sachchidananda Vatsyayan	Hindi
13th	1977	K. Shivaram Karanth	Kannada
12th	1976	Ashapoorna Devi	Bengali
11th	1975	Akilan	Tamil
10th	1974	Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar	Marathi
9th	1973	D. R. Bendre	Kannada
9th	1973	Gopinath Mohanty	Odia
8th	1972	Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’	Hindi
7th	1971	Bishnu Dey	Bengali
6th	1970	Viswanatha Satyanarayana	Telugu
5th	1969	Firaq Gorakhpuri	Urdu
4th	1968	Sumitranandan Pant	Hindi
3rd	1967†	Umashankar Joshi	Gujarati
3rd	1967†	Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa ‘Kuvempu’	Kannada
2nd	1966	Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay	Bengali
1st	1965	G. Sankara Kurup	Malayalam

According to Articles 344(1) and 351 of the Indian Constitution, the Eighth Schedule includes the recognition of the following 22 languages:

1) Assamese

2) Bengali  

3) Bodo  

4) Dogri  

5) Gujarati  

6) Hindi 7) Kannada 

8) Kashmiri

9) Konkani 

10) Maithili

11) Malayalam

12) Meitei

13) Marathi

14) Nepali

15) Oriya

16) Punjabi

17) Sanskrit

18) Santhali

19) Sindhi

20) Tamil

21) Telugu

22) Urdu

Facts about Jnanpith Award

• From 1965 to 1981, awards were given to authors for their "most outstanding work" and included a citation, a cash prize, and a bronze replica of Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of wisdom and knowledge.
• The first recipient of the award was Malayalam writer G. It was Shankar Kurup, who received this award in 1965 for his collection of poems, Odakkuzhal (The Bamboo Flute), published in 1950.
• The rules were revised in subsequent years to consider works published during the previous twenty years, excluding the year for which the prize was to be awarded, and increasing the cash prize to ₹1.5 lakh (₹26 lakh or US$33,000). equals). 2020) since 1981.
• As of 2015, the cash prize has been revised to ₹11 lakh (equivalent to ₹14 lakh or US$18,000 in 2020) and the prize is awarded for works in sixteen of the twenty-three eligible languages: Hindi (eleven), Kannada (eight), Bengali and Malayalam (six each), Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya and Urdu (four each), Assamese and Telugu (three each), Punjabi, Tamil and Konkani (two each), English, Kashmiri and Sanskrit (two each). one each).
• The award has been presented to twenty eight authors including seven women writers.
• In 1976, Bengali novelist Ashapurna Devi became the first woman to win the award and was honored for her 1965 novel Prothom Protishruti (The First Promise), the first in a trilogy.

Rules and Selection Process

• Nominations for the award are received from various literary experts, educators, critics, universities and many literary and language associations.
• An advisory committee is constituted for each language every three years.
• The language of the most recent recipient's work is not eligible for consideration for the next two years.
• Each committee consists of three literary critics and scholars from their respective languages.
• All nominations are scrutinized by the committee and their recommendations are submitted to the Jnanpith Award Selection Board (Pravar Parishad).
• The selection board consists of seven and eleven members of "high reputation and integrity".
• Each member is part of the committee for a term of three years which can be extended for two more terms.
• The recommendations of all the Language Advisory Committees are evaluated by the Board on the basis of full or partial translation of selected articles in Hindi or English by the proposed authors.
• The recipient for a particular year is announced by the selection board, which has the final say in the selection.