Books and Authors
About 6 min · General Knowledge and General Awareness · English
Time worked out from the lesson's 365 words at 150 words a minute, plus a minute for each question.
Questions ask you to match a book title with its author or identify the author given a famous work. This topic rewards structured memorisation rather than reasoning—you either know the pairing or you don't.
Key ideas
- Freedom fighters' autobiographies: Books by Gandhi, Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose and other independence leaders, e.g. My Experiments with Truth and The Discovery of India.
- Literary awards: Booker Prize, Sahitya Akademi Award and Jnanpith Award winners dominate the Indian authors list. Know at least one major work per prominent winner.
- International classics: Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Tolstoy, and recent Nobel laureates form the core international list.
- Autobiographies vs. biographies: Distinguish who wrote about themselves (autobiography) versus who wrote about another person (biography). This distinction appears in questions.
- Pen names: Some authors (e.g. Mark Twain for Samuel Clemens, George Orwell for Eric Blair) are better known by pseudonyms. The exam uses the popular name but may test your awareness of the real name.
Watch out for
- Confusing similar titles: Students mix up The Discovery of India (Nehru) and India Wins Freedom (Maulana Azad). Associate "Discovery" with "Nehru" and "Freedom" with "Azad" using a mnemonic.
- Misattributing Booker Prize winners: Multiple Indian authors have won the Booker Prize. Don't assume every Booker winner is Arundhati Roy. Know at least four: Salman Rushdie (1981), Arundhati Roy (1997), Kiran Desai (2006, The Inheritance of Loss), Aravind Adiga (2008).
- Ignoring pen names: Recognising that George Orwell is Eric Blair or Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens can prevent confusion if the question mentions the real name. Always learn both.
Quick reference
- My Experiments with Truth → Mahatma Gandhi
- The Discovery of India → Jawaharlal Nehru
- Gitanjali → Rabindranath Tagore (Nobel 1913)
- Midnight's Children → Salman Rushdie (Booker 1981)
- The God of Small Things → Arundhati Roy (Booker 1997)
Check yourself: 3 questions
1. Who is the author of the famous book 'Wings of Fire'?
2. Which Indian author wrote the novel 'The God of Small Things' that won the Booker Prize in 1997?
3. Who wrote the epic novel 'A Suitable Boy', one of the longest novels ever published in a single volume in the English language?
This lesson is cut from the topic's note, not rewritten. Fact-checked on 18 Oct 2026: an AI-assisted check of this note against cited sources; the errors it found were corrected that day. Some errors may remain. The questions are from Shishya's validated question bank.
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