Award
The
Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
is a literary honour in India bestowed by the
Sahitya Akademi
, India's National Academy of Letters.
[1]
[2]
It is the highest honour conferred by the Akademi on a living writer,
[1]
the number of fellows at no time exceeding 21.
[3]
Elected from among writers thought by the Akademi to be of acknowledged merit, the fellows are sometimes described as the "immortals of Indian literature."
[3]
[4]
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
was the first writer elected to the Fellowship;
Mulk Raj Anand
was the first
Indian English
writer to be inducted in 1989 and
R. K. Narayan
in 1994, the second.
[5]
History and purpose
[
edit
]
The appointment of Fellows to the
Sahitya Akademi
was based in part on models of academies of letters, and in particular, on the
Academie francaise
's model of honouring literary excellent by electing writers as Members.
[6]
The initial Constitution of the Academy proposed a limited membership of twenty-one Fellows, who were to be "literary persons of outstanding merit".
[7]
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.
[7]
Soon after the death of
Jawaharlal Nehru
, who was the first President of the Sahitya Akademi,
Mulk Raj Anand
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.
[8]
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.
[9]
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.
[9]
He was appointed "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to Indian thought and to the tradition of universal humanism".
[9]
The first woman to be elected Fellow was
Mahadevi Varma
, in 1979,
[10]
followed by three women writers in 1994 (Malayalam poet
Balamani Amma
, Bengali novelist and poet
Ashapoorna Devi
, and Urdu novelist
Qurratulain Hyder
). Hindi author
Krishna Sobti
was honoured in 1996, and English novelist
Anita Desai
in 2009. In 2019, the fellowship was conferred on Dogri writer
Padma Sachdev
and in 2021 to Malayalam writer and critic
M. Leelavathy
.
[11]
On 19 September 2021, the Akademi announced the fellowships to
Bengali
writer
Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay
,
Malayalam
writer and critic
M. Leelavathy
,
English
writer
Ruskin Bond
,
Hindi
writer
Vinod Kumar Shukla
,
Marathi
poet and scholar
Bhalchandra Nemade
,
Punjabi
writer and professor
Tejwant Singh Gill
,
Sanskrit
scholar
Rambhadracharya
,
Tamil
playwright
Indira Parthasarathy
. As of 2023
[update]
, there are only 17 fellows of the Sahitya Akademi.
[11]
Appointment of fellowships
[
edit
]
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.
[12]
The fellowship was established in 1968 and is limited to twenty individuals at any given time.
[11]
As of 2021
[update]
, the fellowship has been conferred on 105 writers.
[11]
[13]
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.
[14]
The participants in the first series included
Vishnu Bhikaji Kolte
(Marathi scholar, writer, and critic),
Harbhajan Singh
(Punjabi writer and critic) and
Nagarjun
(Maithili and Hindi poet and novelist).
[14]
Fellowships to foreign authors
[
edit
]
In addition to twenty-one fellowships to Indian nationals, the Sahitya Akademi has also instituted three fellowships to international writers and scholars.
Honorary fellowships
[
edit
]
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".
[12]
The number of such fellowships is limited to ten individuals at any given time, an increase from the original provision for five fellows.
[7]
The first Honorary Fellow of the Akademi was appointed in 1974: the poet, the first
President of Senegal
, and theorist of
Negritude
Leopold Sedar Senghor
.
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..."
[16]
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
.
[16]
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
; Greek diplomant, scholar and poet, Vassilis Vitsaxis; and Russian academic and scholar of Indian history, Evgeni Petrovich Chelyshev.
[17]
The most recent recipient of the fellowship is a
Mauritian
poet, novelist Abhimanyu Unnuth who was awarded in the year 2013.
[11]
As of 2016
[update]
, nine individuals have been elected as honorary fellows.
Ananda Coomaraswamy Fellowship
[
edit
]
Named after a
Sri Lankan
Tamil
philosopher
Ananda Coomaraswamy
, 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
, and
Uzbekistani
professor Azad N. Shamatov.
[a]
The fellowship was discontinued after its first conferral and was revived in 2005 but no conferment has been made since then.
Premchand Fellowship
[
edit
]
The "Premchand Fellowship" is instituted in 2005 and is named after Hindi writer
Premchand
, 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
(SAARC) countries other than India. The first and sole recipient of the fellowship is a Pakistani national and
Urdu
writer
Intizar Hussain
. 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.
[11]
List of fellows
[
edit
]
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
is the first recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship.
Leopold Sedar Senghor
is the first recipient of the Honorary Fellowship.
Key
#
|
Indicates a current fellow
|
†
|
Indicates Honorary Fellowship
|
‡
|
Indicates Premchand Fellowship
|
§
|
Indicates Ananda Coomaraswamy Fellowship
|
See also
[
edit
]
Explanatory notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Out of three recipients, only Bandaranayake and Shamatov availed the fellowship and spent several weeks in India doing literary research. Nakane did not avail the fellowship.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Kachru, Braj B.
(2005),
Asian Englishes: Beyond the Canon
, Hong Kong University Press, pp. 145?,
ISBN
978-962-209-665-3
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 ..."
- ^
Rao, D.S. (2004).
Five Decades of The National Academy of Letters, India: A Short History of Sahitya Akademi
. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 7.
- ^
a
b
George, Rosemary Marangoly (2013),
Indian English and the Fiction of National Literature
, Cambridge University Press, p. 144,
ISBN
978-1-107-04000-7
Quote: Poet, President of Senegal,
and theorist of "Negritude" 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."
- ^
"Sahitya Akademi: Fellows and Honorary Fellows"
.
sahitya-akademi.gov.in
. Retrieved
22 March
2017
.
- ^
George, Rosemary Marangoly (2013),
Indian English and the Fiction of National Literature
, Cambridge University Press, p. 144,
ISBN
978-1-107-04000-7
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."
- ^
Rao, D. S. (2004).
Five Decades of The National Academy of Letters, India: A Short History of Sahitya Akademi
. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 1.
- ^
a
b
c
Rao, D.S. (2004).
Five Decades of The National Academy of Letters, India: A Short History of Sahitya Akademi
. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 10.
- ^
Rao, D. S. (2004).
Five Decades of The National Academy of Letters, India: A Short History of Sahitya Akademi
. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 20.
- ^
a
b
c
Rao, D.S. (2004).
Five Decades of The National Academy of Letters, India: A Short History of Sahitya Akademi
. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 21.
- ^
Rao, D.S. (2004).
Five Decades of The National Academy of Letters, India: A Short History of Sahitya Akademi
. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 22.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
"Sahitya Akademi Fellows"
. Sahitya Akademi
. Retrieved
6 November
2023
.
- ^
a
b
"Sahitya Akademi: The Constitution I"
. Sahitya Akademi
. Retrieved
2 January
2017
.
- ^
a
b
"Sahitya Akademi Fellowship Announced"
(PDF)
(Press release). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. 16 February 2016
. Retrieved
15 December
2016
.
- ^
a
b
Rao, D.S. (2004).
Five Decades of The National Academy of Letters, India: A Short History of Sahitya Akademi
. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 23.
- ^
a
b
Rao, D.S. (2004).
Five Decades of The National Academy of Letters, India: A Short History of Sahitya Akademi
. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 25.
- ^
Rao, D.S. (2004).
Five Decades of The National Academy of Letters, India: A Short History of Sahitya Akademi
. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. p. 26.
- ^
"Press Release : Election of Fellows of Sahitya Akademi"
(PDF)
.
sahitya-akademi.gov.in
. Sahitya Academy
. Retrieved
29 January
2019
.
- ^
Varma, P. Sujatha (27 February 2021).
"Kendra Sahitya Akademi award for Velcheru Narayana Rao"
.
The Hindu
– via www.thehindu.com.
- ^
"Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay: ??????? ???????? '????' ?????? ???????????, ????? ????????? ?????? ???? ????"
.
www.anandabazar.com
(in Bengali)
. Retrieved
19 September
2021
.
- ^
"Ruskin Bond, Vinod Kumar Shukla and Six Others Named For Sahitya Akademi Fellowship"
.
The Indian Express
. Retrieved
19 September
2021
.
Bibliography
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
|
---|
1968?1980
|
- Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
(1968)
- D. R. Bendre
,
Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay
,
Sumitranandan Pant
,
C. Rajagopalachari
(1969)
- Vaikom Muhammad Basheer
,
Firaq Gorakhpuri
,
Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar
,
Viswanatha Satyanarayana
(1970)
- Kaka Kalelkar
,
Gopinath Kaviraj
,
Gurbaksh Singh
,
Kalindi Charan Panigrahi
(1971)
- Masti Venkatesha Iyengar
,
Mangharam Udharam Malkani
,
Nilmoni Phukan
,
Vasudev Vishnu Mirashi
,
Sukumar Sen
,
V. R. Trivedi
(1973)
- T. P. Meenakshisundaram
(1975)
- Atmaram Ravaji Deshpande
,
Jainendra Kumar
,
Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa 'Kuvempu'
,
V. Raghavan
,
Mahadevi Varma
(1979)
|
---|
1981?2000
|
- Umashankar Joshi
,
K. R. Srinivasa Iyengar
,
K. Shivaram Karanth
(1985)
- Mulk Raj Anand
,
Vinayaka Krishna Gokak
,
Laxmanshastri Balaji Joshi
,
Amritlal Nagar
,
Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai
,
Annada Shankar Ray
(1989)
- Nagarjun
,
Balamani Amma
,
Ashapurna Devi
,
Qurratulain Hyder
,
Vishnu Bhikaji Kolte
,
Kanhu Charan Mohanty
,
P. T. Narasimhachar
,
R. K. Narayan
,
Harbhajan Singh
(1994)
- Jayakanthan
,
Vinda Karandikar
,
Vidya Niwas Mishra
,
Subhash Mukhopadhyay
,
Raja Rao
,
Sachidananda Routray
,
Krishna Sobti
(1996)
- Syed Abdul Malik
,
K. S. Narasimhaswamy
,
Gunturu Seshendra Sarma
,
Rajendra Shah
,
Ram Vilas Sharma
,
N. Khelchandra Singh
(1999)
- Ramchandra Narayan Dandekar
,
Rehman Rahi
(2000)
|
---|
2001?present
|
- Ram Nath Shastri
(2001)
- Kaifi Azmi
,
Govind Chandra Pande
,
Nilamani Phookan
,
Bhisham Sahni
(2002)
- Kovilan
,
U. R. Ananthamurthy
,
Vijaydan Detha
,
Bhadriraju Krishnamurti
,
Amrita Pritam
,
Shankha Ghosh
,
Nirmal Verma
(2004)
- Manoj Das
,
Vishnu Prabhakar
(2006)
- Anita Desai
,
Kartar Singh Duggal
,
Ravindra Kelekar
(2007)
- Gopi Chand Narang
,
Ramakanta Rath
(2009)
- Chandranath Mishra Amar
,
Kunwar Narayan
,
Bholabhai Patel
,
Kedarnath Singh
,
Khushwant Singh
(2010)
- Raghuveer Chaudhari
,
Arjan Hasid
,
Sitakant Mahapatra
,
M. T. Vasudevan Nair
,
Asit Rai
,
Satya Vrat Shastri
(2013)
- Santeshivara Lingannaiah Bhyrappa
,
C. Narayana Reddy
(2014)
- Nirendranath Chakravarty
,
Gurdial Singh
(2016)
|
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Honorary Fellows
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Premchand Fellowship
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Ananda Coomaraswamy Fellowship
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