Odia novelist Pratibha Ray to get Jnanpith Award

BHUBANESWAR: Eminent Odia novelist and story teller Padmashri Dr Pratibha Ray has been selected for the most coveted literary honour Jnanpith award for the year of 2011 for her excellent contributions to the field of Indian literature. After the gap of 19 years, Odia literature got India’s most prestigious literary award. 

Dr Ray would be the fourth Odia writer to receive the prestigious award after novelist Gopinath Mohanty who had received the award in 1973, poet Sachidananda Routray in 1986 and Dr Sitakant Mohapatra in 1993. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 7 lakh, a citation and a bronze replica of Goddess Saraswati.

The Padmashri awarded writer, who has already won the Bharatiya Jnanpith Trust’s Moorti Devi Award (1991) for her most acclaimed work Yajnaseni, would be the seventh woman in the country to get Jnanpith award.

Her most popular works are Mahamoh (1997), Shilapadma (1983) and Uttarmarg (1988), Parichya (1979), Punyatoya (1979), Magnamati (2004) centred on the cyclone that ravaged Odisha in 1999 and other works.

The novelist was born on January 21, 1943, at Alabol, a remote village in the Balikuda area of Jagatsinghpur district. She had started her literary journey from her first novel Barsha Basanta Baishakha (1974).

Dr Ray has received many other awards including Odisha Sahitya Academi Award in 1985 for her novel ‘Sheelapadma’, ‘Sarala Award’ for her novel ‘Yajnaseni’ in 1990 and ‘Sahitya Akademi Award’ for her short-story collection ‘Ullaghna’ in 2000.