French Minister of Culture Franck Riester, who's currently on an official India visit, will confer the insignia of the distinction on Kapur in a special investiture ceremony on January 28 at the French embassy in New Delhi.
Kapoor was born in an illustrious family of Indian and English theatre personalities Shashi Kapoor and Jennifer Kendal. She debuted on screen with Aparna Sen's "36 Chowringhee Lane" (1981) and played the leading actress in "Hero Hiralal" (1989). She also appeared in Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay (1988).
But she went on to dedicate herself fully to theatre, acting in plays and reviving the Prithvi Theatre in Mumbai, founded by her parents as a tribute to Prithviraj Kapoor, and run by her brother Kunal Kapoor since 2012.
In 2012, she co-founded Junoon, an organisation dedicated to increasing the reach of theatre and arts to a wider audience through innovative initiatives.
L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is a French government distinction instituted in 1957 by the Ministry of Culture, and is conferred, regardless of nationality, on persons who have distinguished themselves by their creativity in the fields of art or literature, or for their contribution to promoting art and literature in France and throughout the world.
Some noted Indian recipients of this honour in the past include Bharti Kher, Shah Rukh Khan, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Aishwarya Rai, Raghu Rai, Ebrahim Alkazi, Habib Tanveer, Upamanyu Chatterjee, Wendell Rodricks and Aruna Vasudev.
( With inputs from IANS )