Indian scholar and literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak has been named the 2025 Holberg Laureate, the Holberg Committee announced on Thursday. The award, among the most prestigious in the humanities and social sciences, carries a prize of EUR 515,000 (₹4.6 crore).
82-year-old Spivak, a professor in the humanities at Columbia University, will receive the prize from Crown Prince Haakon of Norway at a ceremony on June 5. "She receives the prize for her groundbreaking interdisciplinary research in comparative literature, translation, postcolonial studies, political philosophy, and feminist theory," the Holberg Prize committee said in a statement.
Born in Kolkata on Feb. 24, 1942, Spivak is widely regarded as one of the most influential intellectuals of her time, shaping literary criticism and philosophy since the 1970s. She earned her PhD from Cornell University in 1967 after studying at the University of Calcutta.
Spivak has been a professor at Columbia University since 2007 and is a founding member of its Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. Over the course of her career, Spivak has taught at more than 20 institutions. Her honours include the Padma Bhushan (2013), the Kyoto Prize in Art and Philosophy (2012), and the Modern Language Association Lifetime Scholarly Achievement Award (2018). She has received over 50 faculty awards and holds 15 honorary doctorates worldwide.
Spivak's 1988 essay 'Can the Subaltern Speak?' reshaped postcolonial and subaltern studies by examining how marginalised voices are silenced within global capitalism. The essay remains widely cited and debated, influencing discussions on political subjectivity, access to the state, and the structural barriers that prevent subaltern groups from being heard.
Established by the Norwegian Parliament in 2003 and administered by the University of Bergen, the Holberg Prize recognises outstanding contributions to research in the arts, humanities, social sciences, law, and theology. The prize is named after Danish-Norwegian writer and philosopher Ludvig Holberg and is regarded as the closest equivalent to the Nobel Prize for the humanities and social sciences.