New Delhi (CNN) India's most valuable literature prize has crowned south Indian writer Benyamin its inaugural winner for his novel "Jasmine Days," a story of a young women caught up in the Arab Spring protests of 2011.

The prize , funded by UK construction giant JCB, awarded Benyamin $34,000 at a lavish event in New Delhi on Wednesday evening, with an additional $6,000 for Shahnaz Habib, who translated the book from Malayalam into English.

"The courage shown by Benyamin in 'Jasmine Days' in examining some of the most important conflicts of our times is exceptional" said Vivek Shanbhag, author and chair of the 2018 JCB Prize for Literature judging panel. "The novel provides powerful insights into the violence associated with change."

Benyamin has described the book as a "metaphor for the world today, full of fanatics."

"This is the most beautiful evening of my life." Benyamin, accepting the @TheJCBPrize. pic.twitter.com/JsnOKWQPhf — Nilanjana Roy (@nilanjanaroy) October 24, 2018

Organizers hope the prize will increase accessibility to literary fiction across a range of Indian languages and expose people to new ideas outside of their so-called "linguistic ghettos," where they are unaware of what other segments of Indian society are talking, writing and thinking about.

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