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The recipients for the country’s highest literary honour were announced here on Friday after a meeting of Jnanpith Selection Board chaired by noted Oriya writer and Jnanpith award winner Sitakant Mahapatra. Born in 1931 in Kerala’s Kollam district, Kurup is a leading voice among contemporary Malayalam poets, who has reinvented the narrative transition of Malayalam poetry through works like ‘Ujjayini’ and ‘Swayamvaram’.
According to a statement by Bharatiya Jnanpith, the trust which presents the award, Kurup began his career as a “progressive writer and matured into a humanist though he never gave up his commitment to socialist ideology”.
Kurup has 20 collections of poetry to his credit. He is also winner of several awards and honours including Kerala Sahitya Academy award, Sahitya Academy award, Vayalar award and Padmashri.
Born in 1936 in a Muslim Rajput family in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district, Shahryar shaped himself as an “intellectual poet”, whose poetry strongly expresses an “ideological non-commitment”.