The Sahitya Akademi Fellowship is a literary honour in India bestowed by the
Sahitya Akademi
The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...
, India's National Academy of Letters.Quote: "In his acceptance speech when India's National Academy of Letters (Sahitya Akademi) in 1997 conferred its highest honour, the Fellowship, to Raja Rao, he said, "My dream would have been to write in that luminous and precise language Sanskrit ..." It is the highest honour conferred by the Akademi on a living writer, the number of fellows at no time exceeding 21. Quote: Poet, President of Senegal,
and theorist of "Négritude" Leopold Sangor was elected the first Honorary Fellow of the Sahitya Akademi in 1974. This group was to complement the category of "Fellows of the Akademi" whose number was at no time to exceed twenty-one in total and who were to be living Indian writers of undisputed excellence — "the immortals of literature."
Elected from among writers thought by the Akademi to be of acknowledged merit, the fellows are sometimes described as the "immortals of Indian literature."
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (; 5 September 1888 – 17 April 1975), natively Radhakrishnayya, was an Indian philosopher and statesman. He served as the 2nd President of India from 1962 to 1967. He also 1st Vice President of India from 1952 ...
was the first writer elected to the Fellowship;
Mulk Raj Anand
Mulk Raj Anand (12 December 1905 – 28 September 2004) was an Indian writer in English, recognised for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, togethe ...
was the first
Indian English
Indian English (IE) is a group of English dialects spoken in the republic of India and among the Indian diaspora. English is used by the Indian government for communication, along with Hindi, as enshrined in the Constitution of India. E ...
writer to be inducted in 1989 and
R. K. Narayan
Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami (10 October 1906 – 13 May 2001) was an Indian writer known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mul ...
in 1994, the second. Quote: "S. Radhakrishnan was the first "Fellow of the Akademi" to be given this title in 1968 after he left the service of both the government and the Akademi. ... Mulk Raj Anand was the first Indian English writer to be inducted in 1989 and R. K. Narayan the second Indian writer working in English to be inducted in 1994."
History and purpose
The appointment of Fellows to the
Sahitya Akademi
The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...
was based in part on models of academies of letters, and in particular, on the
Académie française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
's model of honouring literary excellent by electing writers as Members. The initial Constitution of the Academy proposed a limited membership of twenty-one Fellows, who were to be "literary persons of outstanding merit". The first General Committee recommended an expansion in the number of fellows, by including fifty Associate Fellows, as well as five Honorary Fellows. The latter provision was to enable the Akademi to honour foreign writers as well. Despite the inclusion of this provision, the Akademi did not make appointments to the position of Associate Fellows, and in 1999 the provision for their appointment was deleted.
Soon after the death of
Jawaharlal Nehru
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat—
*
*
*
* and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
, who was the first President of the Sahitya Akademi,
Mulk Raj Anand
Mulk Raj Anand (12 December 1905 – 28 September 2004) was an Indian writer in English, recognised for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, togethe ...
proposed that Nehru be elected as a Fellow of the Akademi posthumously. This proposal was rejected, and the Akademi took the view that Fellowships would only be conferred upon living writers. The General Council has, as a practice, refrained from electing its own members for the Fellowship, although there have been instances of members of the General Council become fellows after their term on the Council ends. A significant exception to this practice is the appointment of D. Jayakanthan as a Fellow while he was serving on the council.
The first Fellow of the Akademi, S. Radhakrishnan, was elected as Fellow in 1968, fourteen years after the Akademi was constituted. Radhakrishnan had previously served on the Council of the Sahitya Akademi, first as vice-president, and later, as president. He was appointed "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Indian thought and to the tradition of universal humanism". The first woman to be elected Fellow was Mahadevi Varma, in 1979, . followed by three women writers in 1994 (Malayalam poet
Balamani Amma
Nalapat Balamani Amma (19 July 1909 – 29 September 2004) was an Indian poet who wrote in Malayalam. ''Amma'' (Mother), ''Muthassi'' (Grandmother), and ''Mazhuvinte Katha'' (The story of the Axe) are some of her well-known works. She ...
, Bengali novelist and poet
Ashapoorna Devi
Ashapurna Devi (8 January 1909 – 12 July 1995), also Ashapoorna Devi or Ashapurna Debi, was a prominent Indian novelist and poet in Bengali. In 1976, she was awarded the Jnanpith Award and Padma Shri by the Government of India, D.Litt. by ...
, and Urdu novelist
Qurratulain Hyder
Qurratulain Hyder (20 January 1927 – 21 August 2007) was an Indian Urdu novelist and short story writer, an academic, and a journalist. One of the most outstanding and influential literary names in Urdu literature, she is best known for ...
). Hindi author
Krishna Sobti
Krishna Sobti (18 February 1925 – 25 January 2019) was an Indian Hindi-language fiction writer and essayist. She won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1980 for her novel ''Zindaginama'' and in 1996, was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the ...
was honoured in 1996, and English novelist
Anita Desai
Anita Desai, born Anita Mazumdar (born 24 June 1937) is an Indian novelist and the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a writer she has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three ti ...
in 2009. On 16 February 2016, the Akademi announced the fellowship to Punjabi writer and novelist
Gurdial Singh
Gurdial Singh Rahi (''Gurdi'āl Sigh''; 10 January 1933 – 16 August 2016) was an Indian writer and novelist who wrote in Punjabi. He started his literary career in 1957 with a short story, "Bhaganwale." He became known as a novelist when he p ...
and
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
poet
Nirendranath Chakravarty
Nirendranath Chakravarty (19 October 1924 – 25 December 2018) was a contemporary Bengali poet, Translator, Novelist.
He lived in Bangur Avenue, Kolkata.
Biography
He was born in Faridpur district of undivided Bengal in 1924. After graduati ...
. , there are only 20 fellows of the Sahitya Akademi.
Appointment of fellowships
The executive board of the Akademi recommends the names of literary persons to be elected as Fellows and Honorary Fellows to the General Council. The General Council, who operates for the period of five years, holds an authority to elect a fellow based on the recommendation made by the executive board.
*
The fellowship was established in 1968 and is limited to twenty individuals at any given time. , the fellowship has been conferred on 92 writers.
In 1994, the Akademi began the practice of holding an event called 'Samvad' in which Fellows read from their work, and each reading was followed by discussions with a panel of critics and writers. The participants in the first series included V. B. Kolte (Marathi scholar, writer, and critic), Harbhajan Singh (Punjabi writer and critic) and Nagarjun (Maithili and Hindi poet and novelist).
Fellowships to foreign authors
In addition to twenty-one fellowships to Indian nationals, the Sahitya Akademi has also instituted three fellowships to international writers and scholars.
Honorary fellowships
The Sahitya Akademi's Constitution provides for the appointment of 'Honorary Fellows' of the Akademi "from among literary persons of outstanding merit who are not nationals of India". The number of such fellowships is limited to ten individuals at any given time, an increase from the original provision for five fellows. The first Honorary Fellow of the Akademi was appointed in 1974: the poet, the first President of Senegal, and theorist of
Négritude
''Négritude'' (from French "Nègre" and "-itude" to denote a condition that can be translated as "Blackness") is a framework of critique and literary theory, developed mainly by francophone intellectuals, writers, and politicians of the African ...
Léopold Sédar Senghor
Léopold Sédar Senghor (; ; 9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese poet, politician and cultural theorist who was the first president of Senegal (1960–80).
Ideologically an African socialist, he was the major theoretician o ...
. The citation provided to him records that "Senghor is one of the leading literary figures of the African continent. As a linguist he has been working to establish links between Dravidian, Sumerian, ancient Egyptian and African languages..." In his acceptance speech, Senghor described himself as an "old admmirer of the Indian Civilisation," emphasizing his fondness for the poetry of Indian poet
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
.
Other Honorary Fellows of the Akademi include American linguist and Indologist Edward C. Dimock; American professor of Sanskrit, Daniel Henry Holmes Ingall; Czech scholar of Dravidian studies, Kamil Vaclav Zvelebil; Chinese professor of Indian literature and translator,
Ji Xianlin
Ji Xianlin (; August 6, 1911 – July 11, 2009) was a Chinese Indologist, linguist, paleographer, historian and writer who has been honored by the governments of both India and China. Ji was proficient in many languages including Chinese, Sanskr ...
; Greek diplomant, scholar and poet, Vassilis Vitsaxis; and Russian academic and scholar of Indian history, Evgeni Petrovich Chelyshev.
The most recent recipient of the fellowship is a
Mauritian
Mauritians (singular Mauritian; french: Mauricien; Creole: ''Morisien'') are nationals or natives of the Republic of Mauritius and their descendants. Mauritius is a multi-ethnic society, with notable groups of people of South Asian (notably I ...
poet, novelist Abhimanyu Unnuth who was awarded in the year 2013. , nine individuals have been elected as honorary fellows.
Ananda Coomaraswamy Fellowship
Named after a
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
n
Tamil
Tamil may refer to:
* Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia
**Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils
**Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia
* Tamil language, nativ ...
philosopher
Ananda Coomaraswamy
Ananda Kentish Muthu Coomaraswamy ( ta, ஆனந்த குமாரசுவாமி, ''Ānanda Kentiś Muthū Kumāraswāmī''; si, ආනන්ද කුමාරස්වාමි ''Ānanda Kumārasvāmī''; 22 August 1877 − 9 Septem ...
, the "Ananda Coomaraswamy Fellowship" was instituted in 1996 and is offered to "a person of eminence in the field of Asian art, culture, literature and language studies" from Asian countries to pursue literary projects. It was announced on three individuals, Sri Lankan Archaeologist Senake Bandaranayake, Japanese author and anthropologist
Chie Nakane
was a Japanese anthropologist and Professor Emerita of Social Anthropology at the University of Tokyo.
Education and career
Nakane was born in Tokyo and spent her teenage years in Beijing. She graduated from Tsuda College in 1947 and then comp ...
, and
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked cou ...
i professor Azad N. Shamatov. The fellowship was discontinued after its first conferral and was revived in 2005 but no conferment has been made since then.
Premchand Fellowship
The "Premchand Fellowship" is instituted in 2005 and is named after Hindi writer
Premchand
Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (31 July 1880 – 8 October 1936), better known by his pen name Premchand (), was an Indian writer famous for his modern Hindustani literature. Premchand was a pioneer of Hindi and Urdu social fiction. He was one of ...
, who is popularly known as "Munshi Premchand", during his 125th Birth Anniversary. It is given to "a person of eminence in the field of culture and literature" doing research on Indian literature or to creative writers from the
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is the regional intergovernmental organization and geopolitical union of states in South Asia. Its member states are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan ...
(SAARC) countries other than India. The first and sole recipient of the fellowship is a Pakistani national and
Intizar Hussain
Intizar Hussain ( ur, ; 21 December 1925 – 2 February 2016) was a Pakistani writer of Urdu novels, short stories, poetry and nonfiction. He is widely recognised as a leading literary figure of Pakistan. He was among the finalists of the Man Bo ...
. The period of Fellowship for "Ananda Coomaraswamy Fellowship" and "Premchand Fellowship" ranges from one month to three months depending on the convenience and availability of the recipient. The visiting Fellow needs to submit a comprehensive report of their visit which is to be placed before the executive board and are requested to deliver lectures on the topic of their specialization in universities and institutions dealing in the discipline.
Jnanpith Award
The 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 w ...
, annual literary award conferred by the
Bharatiya Jnanpith
Bharatiya Jnanpith a literary and research organization, based in New Delhi, India, was founded on February 18, 1944Encyclopaedia of Indian literature vol. 1, p. 298 1987, Sahitya Akademi, by Sahu Shanti Prasad Jain of the Sahu Jain family and ...
Sahitya Akademi
The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...