Bhalchandra Nemade, 50th Jnanpith Award winner .
Eminent Marathi litterateur Bhalchandra Nemade, whose 1963 novel Kosala (Cocoon) changed the dimensions of Marathi novel, has been selected for 2014 Jnanpith Award, the highest literary honour in India.
Nemade is the fourth Marathi writer to win the literary honour after V.S. Khandekar in 1974, V.V. Shirwadkar alias Kusumagraj in 1988, and Govind Karandikar alias Vinda Karandikar in 2003.
Novelist poet, critic, academic, and a relentless advocate of the literary movements and the leader of the post-1960s Little Magazine movement, Nemade has inscribed his name prominently in the annals of Indian literature.
Not only was “Kosala” instrumental in changing the dimensions of the Marathi novel, but the world of Marathi fiction was transformed with its advent. His mega-novel “Hindu”, published in 2010, matched this feat that “Kosala” achieved over five decades ago.
“Hindu” prominently showcases Nemade’s linguistic scholarship, his creative dexterity with words and an enclyclopaedic civilisational consciousness.
His other novels are “Hool”, “Bidar” (1967), “Zarila” (1977) and “Zhool” (1979), and poetry volumes “Dekhni” and “Melody”.
As a critic, Nemade propagated Deshivad or a theory of nativism that negated globalisation, asserting the value of a writer’s native heritage, and language
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