Noted English writer Amitav Ghosh has been honoured with this year's Jnanpith Award, a literary award given to an author for "outstanding contribution towards literature", Bharatiya Jnanpith announced.

"Amitav Ghosh is a path-breaking novelist. In his novels, Ghosh treads through historical settings to the modern era and weaves a space where the past connects with the present in relevant ways.

JNANPITH AWARD

• The first Gyanpeeth Award was given in 1965 to Malayalam writer Jai Shankar Kurup.
• Jnanpith Award is the highest award given by Indian Jnanpith Trust for Indian literature.
• Any citizen of India who writes in any of the 22 languages ​​mentioned in the eighth schedule is eligible for this award.
• In the prize, a corpus of eleven lakh rupees is given, the citation and Vagdevi's bronze statue is given.
• In 1965, the award, which started from a prize money of Rs. 1 lakh, was made in 2005 for Rs. 7 lakhs, which is currently eleven lakh rupees.
• Hindi literary Kunwar Narayan, who was selected for 2005, was the first person to receive the Jnanpith award of Rs. 7

Amitav Ghosh

• Amitav Ghosh was born on July 11, 1956 in Kolkata. He took high education from St. Stephen's College and Delhi School of Economics, Delhi.
• Amitav Ghosh is a noted English language litterateur. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1989 for his novel The Shadow Lines, composed by him. Ghosh Sahitya Akademi and Padmashri have been honored with many awards.
• Among his major compositions are 'The Circle of Regions', 'De Shadow Line', 'The Calcutta Chromosome', 'The Glass Palace', 'The Hunger Tide', 'River of Smoke' and 'Flood of Fire'.