BharatNotes Every year RPSC's "Major awards, publications and distinguished authors" line turns into one of the highest-yield, lowest-effort scoring areas on the Prelims paper — provided you actually know the series, not just the latest winner. RPSC has repeatedly asked "who won X in year Y", asked candidates to match a winner to their work, and asked which statement about a well-known award is not correct. A candidate who only knows "the current Nobel laureate" gets one lucky guess right and nothing else; a candidate who knows the 2020–2026 sequence for each major literary award can answer almost any phrasing RPSC throws at it.
This chapter covers literary awards at three tiers — international (Nobel Prize in Literature, the Booker Prize, and the International Booker Prize), national (the Jnanpith Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award's Rajasthani-language category, the Vyas Samman and the Saraswati Samman), and Rajasthan's own (the Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi's Meera Puraskar) — spanning 2020 through 2026, with the authors and specific works behind each award, not just bare names.
Note: Before going further, separate five things that get run together constantly: the Booker Prize (English-original fiction), the International Booker Prize (translated fiction, split between author and translator — a different prize, not a category of the first one), the Jnanpith Award (India's highest literary honour, for a lifetime body of work, not one book), the Sahitya Akademi Award (India's National Academy of Letters, language-wise, for one particular book), and the Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi's Meera Puraskar (a separate state-government body, not a branch of the national Sahitya Akademi). Every one of these has tripped up a candidate who assumed they were all "the same kind of thing."
International Literary Awards (2020–2026)
The Nobel Prize in Literature
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded annually by the Swedish Academy, traditionally announced in early October. Unlike the Jnanpith or Sahitya Akademi, it recognises an author's overall body of work rather than a single book, and it is not restricted to any language.
| Year | Laureate | Country | Cited for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Louise Glück | USA | "her unmistakable poetic voice" |
| 2021 | Abdulrazak Gurnah | UK (Tanzania-born) | penetrating portrayal of colonialism's effects |
| 2022 | Annie Ernaux | France | memoir-writing exposing personal/collective memory |
| 2023 | Jon Fosse | Norway | innovative plays and prose |
| 2024 | Han Kang | South Korea | intense poetic prose confronting historical trauma |
| 2025 | László Krasznahorkai | Hungary | "compelling and visionary" body of work |
Exam angle: Han Kang (2024) is RPSC's favourite recent pick here — she was already asked in a 2024 Prelims paper. She is also one of the very few authors to have won both the Nobel and the International Booker (for "The Vegetarian", 2016) — a fact examiners like to test precisely because it links two different award families in one question.
UPSC/RPSC relevance: Asked directly in RAS Prelims 2024 (Q107, Han Kang / 2024 laureate). Given the annual, headline-news nature of this award, expect a fresh MCQ on whichever year's laureate falls inside the current exam's "recent 12–18 months" window.
The Booker Prize (English-original fiction)
The mainline Booker Prize goes to a single novel originally written in English. No Indian author has won it to date — India's presence in this prize family runs through the separate International Booker Prize instead (below).
| Year | Winner | Work | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Douglas Stuart | Shuggie Bain | (UK-based, Scottish) |
| 2021 | Damon Galgut | The Promise | South Africa |
| 2022 | Shehan Karunatilaka | The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida | Sri Lanka |
| 2023 | Paul Lynch | Prophet Song | Ireland |
| 2024 | Samantha Harvey | Orbital | UK |
| 2025 | David Szalay | Flesh | UK/Hungary |
Common mistake: Do not answer "Geetanjali Shree" or "Banu Mushtaq" if a question asks specifically about the English-original Booker Prize — both women won the International Booker Prize, a different award (see next section). This exact substitution is the most common trap in this topic.
The International Booker Prize — and India's two landmark wins
The International Booker Prize is a separate award (est. 2005, in its current annual single-book format since 2016) for a book translated into English from any language, with the £50,000 prize split equally between author and translator.
| Year | Winning work | Author | Translator | Original language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | The Discomfort of Evening | Marieke Lucas Rijneveld | Michele Hutchison | Dutch |
| 2021 | At Night All Blood Is Black | David Diop | Anna Moschovakis | French |
| 2022 | Tomb of Sand | Geetanjali Shree | Daisy Rockwell | Hindi |
| 2023 | Time Shelter | Georgi Gospodinov | Angela Rodel | Bulgarian |
| 2024 | Kairos | Jenny Erpenbeck | Michael Hofmann | German |
| 2025 | Heart Lamp | Banu Mushtaq | Deepa Bhasthi | Kannada |
Two of these six wins carry direct India significance, and RPSC has every reason to test both:
- Geetanjali Shree's "Tomb of Sand" ("Ret Samadhi" in the Hindi original) made her the first Hindi-language author, and the first author writing in any Indian language, to win the International Booker Prize (2022).
- Banu Mushtaq's "Heart Lamp" — a collection of Kannada short stories written across 1990–2023, translated by Deepa Bhasthi — made her the first Kannada-language author to win it (2025), and made "Heart Lamp" the first short-story collection ever to win the award. Deepa Bhasthi became the first Indian translator to win the prize.
Exam angle: RPSC loves stacking multiple "firsts" into one MCQ or statement-based question — first Kannada work, first short-story collection, first Indian translator, all in the same 2025 event. Learn the "firsts," not just the title and author.
National Literary Awards (2020–2026)
The Jnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award, instituted by the Bharatiya Jnanpith trust (not the Sahitya Akademi — a common confusion), is India's highest literary honour, given for an author's lifetime contribution to literature in any Indian language.
Common mistake: Different sources attribute Jnanpith editions to different calendar "years" — the same edition is sometimes labelled by the year the literary contribution covers and sometimes by the year it was announced, and these can differ by 1–2 years across otherwise-reliable sources. The safest anchor for an exam is the consecutive edition number (56th, 57th, 58th...), which stays consistent everywhere.
| Edition | Laureate | Language | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 56th | Nilamani Phookan Jr. | Assamese | poet; announced Dec 2021 |
| 57th | Damodar Mauzo | Konkani | novelist, short-story writer |
| 58th | Gulzar and Jagadguru Rambhadracharya (joint) | Urdu / Sanskrit | announced Feb 2024; conferred by President Murmu, May 2025 |
| 59th | Vinod Kumar Shukla | Hindi | first laureate from Chhattisgarh; announced March 2025 |
| 60th | R. Vairamuthu | Tamil | first Tamil writer honoured primarily for poetry; announced 14 March 2026 |
Exam angle: The 58th edition being a joint award (two laureates, two different languages) is a favourite RPSC trap — a question naming only "Gulzar" as the sole 58th-edition winner, or only "Rambhadracharya," is testing whether you remember it was shared.
UPSC/RPSC relevance: No direct RAS PYQ found yet on the 2023–2026 editions specifically, but this atom's broader awards question set has already tested Jnanpith-adjacent literary-award recall (Nobel 2024 — RAS Prelims 2024, Q107); expect the same treatment for recent Jnanpith editions in upcoming papers.
The Sahitya Akademi Award — Rajasthani-language category
The Sahitya Akademi (India's National Academy of Letters, headquartered in New Delhi) gives an annual award across 24 languages it recognises — including Rajasthani, even though Rajasthani itself has no Eighth Schedule status in the Constitution.
| Year | Winner | Work | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Meethesh Nirmohi | Mugtee | Poetry |
| 2022 | Kamal Ranga | Alekhun Amba | Play |
| 2023 | Gaje Singh Rajpurohit | Palakati Preet | Poetry |
| 2024 | Mukut Maniraj | Gaon Ar Amma | Poetry |
| 2025 | Jitender Kumar Soni | Bharkhama | Short stories |
The 2025 awards (across all 24 languages) were announced on 16 March 2026 and conferred at a New Delhi ceremony on 31 March 2026, with each winner receiving ₹1 lakh, a shawl and a copper plaque. Other notable 2025 winners included Navtej Sarna (English, "Crimson Spring") and Mamta Kalia (Hindi memoir, "Jeete Jee Allahabad").
Exam angle: RPSC has previously tested this exact category at the translation-prize and children's-literature level too (Dr. Krishna Jakhar's 2017 Rajasthani translation prize; C.L. Sankhla's 2018 Bal Sahitya Puraskar) — see the Practice section below and this topic's linked PYQs. Treat "Sahitya Akademi + Rajasthani" as a recurring RPSC favourite across all of its award sub-categories, not just the main annual prize.
Vyas Samman and Saraswati Samman (K.K. Birla Foundation)
Both are private-trust literary honours administered by the K.K. Birla Foundation — easy to conflate, but they differ in scope:
- Vyas Samman — for an outstanding Hindi-language work by an Indian citizen, published in the preceding 10 years.
- Saraswati Samman — for an outstanding work in any of the 22 Eighth-Schedule languages (not Hindi-only), also published in the preceding 10 years.
| Year | Vyas Samman (Hindi only) | Saraswati Samman (any of 22 languages) |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Sharad Pagare — Paatliputra Ki Samragyi (novel) | Sharankumar Limbale — Marathi |
| 2021 | Asghar Wajahat — Mahabali (play), 31st | Ramdarash Mishra — Main Toh Yahan Hoon (Hindi poetry) |
| 2022 | Gyan Chaturvedi — Pagalkhana (novel), 32nd | Sivasankari — Surya Vamsam (Tamil memoir) |
| 2023 | Pushpa Bharti — Yaadein, Yaadein Aur Yaadein (memoir), 33rd | Prabha Varma — Roudra Sathwikam (Malayalam verse-novel) |
| 2024 | Suryabala — Kaun Des Ko Vasi: Venu Ki Diary (novel), 34th | Bhadreshdas Swami — Swaminarayana Siddhanta Sudha (Sanskrit) |
| 2025 | Not confirmed as of this check | Ramkumar Mukhopadhyay — Hara Parbati Katha (Bengali) |
Common mistake: Don't assume the Vyas Samman covers "any Indian language" just because its sibling award (Saraswati Samman) does — the Vyas Samman is Hindi-only by design.
Rajasthan's Own Literary Honour — the Meera Puraskar
Distinct from the National Sahitya Akademi's Rajasthani-language award above, the Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi is Rajasthan's own state-government literary body — headquartered at Meera Bhawan, Udaipur (not Jaipur, a detail RPSC has tested before). Its highest annual honour is the Meera Puraskar (cash award ₹75,000).
For 2023-24, the Meera Puraskar was awarded to Ratankumar Sambhariya of Jaipur for his novel "Saanp" ("Snake"), announced by Academy President Dr. Dularam Saharan in September 2023. The Academy also confers the Suman Sabha's "Sumnesh Joshi Award" (₹21,000) and other category awards (₹31,000 each) in the same annual cycle. A confirmed winner for 2024-25 was not available as of this check.
Exam angle: The single most-confused pair in this entire topic is "National Sahitya Akademi's Rajasthani award" vs. "Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi's Meera Puraskar." They are two completely different institutions — one headquartered in New Delhi (national, 24 languages including Rajasthani), one in Udaipur (state government, Rajasthan-only). If a question gives you a location, use it: New Delhi → national body; Udaipur → state body.
Important for RAS
Prelims Focus
- Learn each award family as a year-by-year series, 2020–2026 — RPSC tests "which year," not just "who is the latest winner."
- Nail the "firsts": first Hindi work (Geetanjali Shree), first Kannada work / first short-story collection (Banu Mushtaq), first Chhattisgarh laureate (Vinod Kumar Shukla), first Tamil-poetry-primary laureate (R. Vairamuthu).
- Know the awarding body for each prize — Bharatiya Jnanpith trust, National Sahitya Akademi, K.K. Birla Foundation, Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi — RPSC frequently swaps these in "match the following" and "not correctly matched" questions.
- Memorise the Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi's Udaipur headquarters specifically; it has already appeared as a distractor location (Jaipur) in past patterns.
Interview Angles
- The Sahitya Akademi honours Rajasthani as one of its 24 recognised languages, yet it has no Eighth Schedule status — a panel could ask what this contradiction means for Rajasthani's future and for language preservation generally.
- Geetanjali Shree's and Banu Mushtaq's International Booker wins put Indian regional-language literature on the world stage — a panel could ask whether India should invest more in translation infrastructure so other Indian languages (Rajasthani included) get similar visibility.
This topic sits under RPSC's Prelims-only "Current Affairs & Issues" block — the Mains syllabus carries no direct "literary awards" line, so there is no forced cross-paper box here. That said, a working knowledge of Rajasthan's own literary figures and the Meera Puraskar can still support a Paper-IV cultural-awareness answer or come up naturally in interview conversation about the state's literary heritage.
Practice — Quick Self-Check
1. Which author won the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2025?
Answer: (c) László Krasznahorkai (Hungary). Han Kang (2024), Jon Fosse (2023) and Annie Ernaux (2022) are all correct laureates — just for earlier years. A classic "right name, wrong year" distractor set.
2. 'Orbital', the winner of the Booker Prize 2024, was written by whom?
Answer: (a) Samantha Harvey. Paul Lynch won in 2023 ("Prophet Song"), Shehan Karunatilaka in 2022 ("The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida"), and David Szalay in 2025 ("Flesh").
3. Geetanjali Shree's International Booker Prize-winning novel 'Tomb of Sand' was originally written in which language?
Answer: (b) Hindi. The original, "Ret Samadhi", was written in Hindi — the 2022 win made Geetanjali Shree the first Hindi-language and first Indian-language author to win the prize.
4. Banu Mushtaq's 'Heart Lamp' (International Booker 2025) is India's first winning work in which language, and the prize's first-ever winner in which literary form?
Answer: (a) Kannada; short-story collection — the first Kannada work, and the first short-story collection, ever to win the International Booker Prize.
5. Vinod Kumar Shukla, recipient of the 59th Jnanpith Award, is the first laureate of this award from which state?
Answer: (b) Chhattisgarh. Born in Rajnandgaon, Shukla is the first Jnanpith laureate from Chhattisgarh (59th edition, Hindi, announced March 2025).
6. The 58th Jnanpith Award was jointly conferred upon Gulzar and which Sanskrit scholar?
Answer: (a) Jagadguru Swami Rambhadracharya — jointly received the 58th Jnanpith Award with Urdu poet-lyricist Gulzar, conferred by President Droupadi Murmu in May 2025.
7. The Sahitya Akademi Award for Rajasthani for 2023 was given to Gaje Singh Rajpurohit for which work?
Answer: (a) 'Palakati Preet'. 'Alekhun Amba' was Kamal Ranga's 2022-winning play; 'Mugtee' was Meethesh Nirmohi's 2021-winning poetry; 'Bharkhama' was Jitender Kumar Soni's 2025-winning short-story collection.
8. The Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi's Meera Puraskar for 2023-24 was awarded to Ratankumar Sambhariya for which novel?
Answer: (a) 'Saanp'. 'Pagalkhana' won the 2022 Vyas Samman (Gyan Chaturvedi), and 'Ret Samadhi' is Geetanjali Shree's International Booker-winning Hindi novel — both deliberately mixed in from related but different award families.
9. The Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi, which confers the Meera Puraskar, is headquartered in which city?
Answer: (b) Udaipur, at Meera Bhawan — not the state capital Jaipur, a commonly-confused detail RPSC has tested before.
10. Arrange in chronological order of their International Booker Prize win: (i) Geetanjali Shree, (ii) Banu Mushtaq, (iii) Jenny Erpenbeck, (iv) Georgi Gospodinov
Answer: (a) — Shree (2022) → Gospodinov (2023) → Erpenbeck (2024) → Mushtaq (2025). This is exactly the "series" format RPSC uses to check whether you've memorised the full sequence, not just the latest name.
Practice — Statement-Based (RPSC Style)
1. Consider the following statements about Han Kang. 1. She was the first South Korean writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. 2. She also won the International Booker Prize in 2016 for 'The Vegetarian'. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer: (c) Both are correct — Han Kang is the first South Korean Nobel literature laureate (2024) and had already won the International Booker Prize in 2016, making her one of the rare authors to hold both honours.
2. Consider the following statements. 1. The (English-original) Booker Prize and the International Booker Prize are simply two names for the same award. 2. No Indian author has won the English-original Booker Prize as of 2025. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer: (b) 2 only. Statement 1 is false — they are two distinct prizes (English-original fiction vs. translated fiction, with different judging cycles and prize structures). Statement 2 is correct — India's Booker-family wins have all come via the International Booker Prize.
3. Consider the following statements about 'Tomb of Sand'. 1. It was originally written in Hindi. 2. Geetanjali Shree was the first Indian-language author of any language to win the International Booker Prize. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer: (c) Both are correct.
4. Consider the following statements about the 58th Jnanpith Award. 1. It was given solely to Gulzar. 2. Vinod Kumar Shukla is the first Jnanpith laureate from Chhattisgarh. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer: (b) 2 only. Statement 1 is false — the 58th Jnanpith was a joint award to Gulzar and Jagadguru Rambhadracharya. Statement 2 (about the separate 59th edition) is correct.
5. Consider the following statements. 1. The National Sahitya Akademi and the Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi are both headquartered in Jaipur. 2. The Rajasthani-language Sahitya Akademi award and the Meera Puraskar are given by two different institutions. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer: (b) 2 only. Statement 1 is false — the National Sahitya Akademi is headquartered in New Delhi, and the Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi in Udaipur; neither is in Jaipur. Statement 2 is correct — they are genuinely two different institutions.
6. Consider the following statements. 1. Both the Vyas Samman and the Saraswati Samman are administered by the K.K. Birla Foundation. 2. The Vyas Samman, like the Saraswati Samman, recognises works in any of the 22 Eighth-Schedule languages. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Answer: (a) 1 only. Statement 2 is false — the Vyas Samman is Hindi-only; the "any of 22 languages" scope belongs to the Saraswati Samman.
Practice — "Which Is/Are NOT Correct" (Inverted Phrasing)
1. Which of the following statements regarding the International Booker Prize 2025 is NOT correct?
Answer: (d) is NOT correct — "Heart Lamp" is a collection of short stories, not a novel; it is in fact the first short-story collection ever to win the prize. Statements (a), (b) and (c) are all true.
2. Which of the following (Award – Awarding Body) pairs is NOT correctly matched?
Answer: (c) is NOT correctly matched — the Jnanpith Award is administered by the separate Bharatiya Jnanpith trust, not by the Sahitya Akademi. Pairs (a), (b) and (d) are all correctly matched.
3. Which of the following statements about the 2023-24 Meera Puraskar is NOT correct?
Answer: (d) is NOT correct — Ratankumar Sambhariya is a resident of Jaipur, not Udaipur (Udaipur is where the Academy itself is headquartered, at Meera Bhawan — a distinction this exact question is designed to test). Statements (a), (b) and (c) are all true.
Key Terms
- Jnanpith Award — India's highest literary honour, administered by the Bharatiya Jnanpith trust, for a lifetime body of work in any Indian language.
- International Booker Prize — annual award for a book translated into English from any language; prize money split equally between author and translator. Distinct from the English-original Booker Prize.
- Sahitya Akademi — India's National Academy of Letters (New Delhi), giving annual awards across 24 recognised languages, including Rajasthani.
- Vyas Samman — K.K. Birla Foundation award for an outstanding Hindi-language work by an Indian citizen, published in the preceding 10 years.
- Saraswati Samman — K.K. Birla Foundation award for an outstanding work in any of the 22 Eighth-Schedule languages, published in the preceding 10 years.
- Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi — Rajasthan's state-government literary body, headquartered at Meera Bhawan, Udaipur; a separate institution from the National Sahitya Akademi.
- Meera Puraskar — the Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi's highest annual honour (₹75,000).
- Eighth Schedule — the list of 22 languages formally recognised by the Indian Constitution; Rajasthani is not on it, even though the Sahitya Akademi gives it a dedicated award category.
Sources & Verification
All facts in this chapter were checked against primary or reputable secondary sources as of 13 August 2026: official Booker Prizes pages (thebookerprizes.com) for the Booker/International Booker tables; PIB/News on AIR for the Sahitya Akademi Awards 2025 and Jnanpith conferment coverage; Drishti IAS for the Rajasthan Sahitya Akademi's 2023-24 Meera Puraskar announcement; and Wikipedia's maintained award-winner lists as secondary cross-checks throughout.
Two data points remain genuinely unsettled and are flagged rather than guessed at: (1) the 2025 (35th) Vyas Samman winner could not be confirmed as of this check — sources covering 1991–2024 are consistent, but no 2025 announcement was found; (2) a confirmed 2024-25 Meera Puraskar winner was not found — only the 2023-24 cycle (Ratankumar Sambhariya) is confirmed. Treat any claim about either of these two specific gaps with caution until independently verified closer to the exam. The Jnanpith "edition vs. calendar-year" inconsistency across sources is discussed explicitly in the relevant section above rather than resolved with false precision.
