PEN/Nabokov Award

In Context

• Recently, Acclaimed Hindi writer Vinod Kumar Shukla won the 2023 PEN/Nabokov Award for achievement in international literature.

About 

• He won the PEN America award for lifetime achievement in literature, after decades of composing acclaimed novels like Naukar Ki Kameez (1979) and poetry collections like Sab Kuch Hona Bacha Rahega (1992).
• His first published work was a poetry collection Lagbhag Jai Hind (1971), followed by Vah Aadmi Chala Gaya Naya Garam Coat Pehankar Vichar Ki Tarah (1981). Naukar Ki Kameez was his first novel.
• He has also won the Sahitya Akademi award and the Atta Galatta–Bangalore Literature Festival Book Prize.

PEN/Nabokov Award

• The PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature is awarded biennially by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to writers, principally novelists, “whose works evoke to some measure Nabokov’s brilliant versatility and commitment to literature as a search for the deepest truth and the highest pleasure— what Nabokov called the ‘indescribable tingle of the spine’.”
• It is one of the most coveted literary prizes worldwide. The winner is awarded $50,000. 
• The award is financed by the Vladimir Nabokov Foundation, founded by Dmitri Nabokov. It has been called one of the most prestigious PEN prizes.
• The PEN American Center awards have been characterized as being among the “major” American literary prizes.

Source:PTI