Literature – GK Questions

Donna Tartt won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her novel 'The Goldfinch'.

U.R. Ananthamurthy wrote 'Samskara' in 1965. It deals with caste and ritual purity in a Brahmin community.

Fyodor Dostoevsky published 'Crime and Punishment' in 1866. It explores the mental anguish of Rodion Raskolnikov.

Mulk Raj Anand wrote 'Coolie' in 1936, highlighting the exploitation of laborers in colonial India.

Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright, wrote 'A Doll's House' in 1879. It is a key work of modern realistic drama.

Amir Khusrau, a Sufi musician and poet in the Delhi Sultanate, is traditionally credited with creating the Sitar and Tabla by modifying existing instruments.

The Prix Goncourt is a French literary prize given to the author of 'the best and most imaginative prose work of the year'.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen wrote 'The Argumentative Indian', discussing India's history of public debate and intellectual pluralism.

Leo Tolstoy wrote 'Anna Karenina', published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877. It is a tragic story of love and society.

The Charaka Samhita is one of the two foundational texts of Ayurveda, the other being the Sushruta Samhita.

Agatha Christie, author of 'Murder on the Orient Express' and creations like Hercule Poirot, is widely known as the Queen of Crime.

Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar wrote 'Yayati', for which he won the Jnanpith Award in 1974.

R.K. Narayan wrote 'The Guide' in 1958. It tells the story of Raju, a tour guide who becomes a holy man.

James Joyce, an Irish modernist writer, published 'Ulysses' in 1922. It is a landmark novel paralleling Homer's Odyssey.

Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. C.V. Raman won in Physics, Mother Teresa in Peace, and Amartya Sen in Economics.

Goswami Tulsidas rewrote the Ramayana in Awadhi as 'Ramcharitmanas' in the 16th century, making it accessible to the common people.

Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian author, wrote 'The Alchemist' in 1988. It is a philosophical novel about following one's dreams.

Mahatma Gandhi wrote 'The Story of My Experiments with Truth', detailing his early life and development of Satyagraha.

Panini wrote the 'Ashtadhyayi', a foundational text of Sanskrit grammar, around the 5th century BCE.

6. Scott Fitzgerald published 'The Great Gatsby' in 1925. It is a critique of the American Dream during the Jazz Age.