Archives: Authors

Kuvempu (Author)
Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa, known as Kuvempu (1904-94), is a cultural icon who powerfully influenced the course of Kannada literature in the twentieth century. Born in a remote hamlet near Thirthahalli, in the Malnad region of Karnataka, he moved to Mysore for his education. He had a master’s degree in Kannada, taught Kannada literature in the University of Mysore, and retired as its vice-chancellor.

Kuvempu’s prolific and versatile oeuvre, with more than seventy-five published works, includes poetry, plays, essays, short stories, children’s literature, novels, literary criticism, translations, and autobiography. The English translation of his classic novel ‘Kanur Heggadati’ (1936) was published by Penguin (1999), and made into a film by Girish Karnad. Kuvempu reimagined Indian epics in light of modern ideals of equality and freedom. His poetic epic ‘Ramayana Darshanam’ (1949) was a radical rewriting of the Valmiki epic, which won the first Sahitya Akademi award in 1955 and the Jnanpith in 1967. He has been conferred Padmavibhushan and Padmabhushan, the highest civilian awards. Inspired by Tolstoy’s expansive canvas, and Aurobindo’s philosophy, Kuvempu sculpted a modern yet entirely desi epic novel in Bride in the Hills.

Vanamala Vishwanatha (Translator)
Vanamala Viswanatha, professor of English Studies, has taught English for over four decades in premiere institutions in Bengaluru. A bilingual scholar, she has taught, published, and promoted Indian literatures in English translation, collaborating with Katha, Sahitya Akademi, and the National Translation Mission. An award-winning translator, she has translated important modern Kannada writers such as Tejasvi (1994), Vaidehi (1998), Sara Aboobacker (1999), U.R. Ananthamurthy (2001), Lankesh (2003), and Gulvadi Venkata Rao (2019). Her repertoire includes the translations of seminal pre-modern classics: Vachana (2012); The Life of Harishchandra (Harvard University Press, 2017); and Vaddaradhane, a 10th century Jaina text (HUP, forthcoming). A Translation Fellow at Ashoka University, she is currently translating L. Tolpadi’s essay collection, Musings on the Mahabharata.

Vikram A Chandra is one of the India’s best –Known TV journalists. He anchor prime time news on Star TV network, and is news editor of NDTV, India’s leading TV news organisation. He reports extensively from Kashmir.
Educated at St. Stephen’s college and at New College, Oxford University, Vikram lives in New Delhi. This is his first book.

Shashi Deshpande is the author of five novel besides Small Remedies, including That Long Silence which won the Sahitya Akademi Award. Her publications include five collections of short stories, four books for children and two short crime novels. Her works have been translated into various European and Indian languages.

Shashi Deshpande is married and has two sons. She lives in Bangalore with her husband Dr. D.H. Deshpande.

Amaresh Misra is a film-maker and freelance journalist. His
previous books include Lucknow: Fire of Grace, a best-selling
biography of Lucknow.
He lives in Delhi.

H.D. Shourie had a long career of some thirty-five years in government service, beginning with the civil service in pre-partition Punjab. At the time of Independence, he was the city Magistrate of Lahore. Immediately thereafter he held a post of Deputy Commissioner from Refugee Relief in Punjab for four Years,
As a part of Indian Administrative Service, he was responsible for setting up the National Productivity Council and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. After retirement he was with the United Nations for three Years.
About twenty years ago he set up the public interest organization common cause dedicated to consumer protection in India. He has been the Director of this organization since its inception.

Professor M.N. Srinivas, FBA, the Doyen of sociology and social anthropology in India, started his academic career at Oxford where he taught in a department headed by the late professor E.E. Evans Pritchard. He started the first department of sociology in India at MS University, Baroda and later headed the department of sociology in Delhi University. In 1972, he founded the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) in Bangalore, along with Professor V.K.R.V. Rao. Professor Srinivas was JRD Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. He died in 1999.

da??in was born to Viradatta and Gauri in a family of priestly scholarsabout 1300 years ago. He lived in Kanchi, near modern Chennai, duringthe reigns of the Pallava kings Paramesvara Varman I and NarasimhaVarman II in the period c. 650–750 ce.
Da??in has been a celebrated name in classical Sanskrit literatureas a novelist, poet and pioneering literary theorist. His work wasknown as far apart as ninth-century Kashmir to tenth-century SriLanka and thirteenth-century Tibet. Apart from Dasa KumaraCharitam, he authored Kavyadarsa, an epic poem now known onlythrough quotation.

aditya narayan dhairyasheel haksar was born in Gwalior and educatedat the Doon School and the universities of Allahabad and Oxford. Awell-known translator of Sanskrit classics, he has also had adistinguished career as a diplomat, serving as Indian high commissionerto Kenya and the Seychelles, minister to the United States, andambassador to Portugal and Yugoslavia. Haksar’s translations fromthe Sanskrit include Hitopadesa, Simhasana Dvatrimsika, The ShatteredThigh and Other Plays and Subhashitavali, all published as PenguinClassics. He has also compiled A Treasury of Sanskrit Poetry.

Chandra Padmanabhan, a graduate from Calcutta University, did her post graduation in education at Delhi University. She is currently working as a director in a book publishing and distribution organization in Chennai. Cooking has been the author’s special hobby for over thirty-five years. She is the author of the best-selling title Dakshin.

Khushwant Singh was born in 1915 in Hadali, Punjab. Today he is
India’s best-known columnist and journalist. Among the works he
has published are a classic two-volume history of the Sikhs, several
novels (the best known of which are Delhi, Train to Pakistan and
The Company of Women) and a number of translated works and
non-fiction books on Delhi, nature and current affairs. His
autobiography, Truth, Love and a Little Malice was published in
2002.

Bhisham Sahni was born in 1915 in Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan).
His first collection of short stories, Bhagya Rekha (Line of Fate)
was published in 1953. Since then he has published five novels,
eight collections of short stories, three plays and a biography of his
late brother, the actor and writer Balraj Sahni. Many of his books
have been translated into various languages. His most famous novel,
Tamas, was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1975.

Saadat Hasan Manto widely regarded as the world’s greatest short
story writer in Urdu was born on 11 May 1912 at Samrala in
Punjab’s Ludhiana district. In a literary, journalistic, radio-scripting
and film-writing career spread over more than two decades, he
produced around 250 stories, scores of plays and a large number
of essays, many of them, controversial. He was tried for obscenity
half a dozen times, thrice before and thrice after Independence. Two
of his greatest stories—‘Colder than Ice’ and ‘The Return’—were
among works considered ‘obscene’ by the Pakistani censors. He
also wrote over a dozen films, including Eight Days, Chal Chal Re
Naujawan and Mirza Ghalib. The last one was shot after Manto
moved to Pakistan in January 1948. Manto’s greatest work was
produced in the last seven years of his life, a time of great financial
and emotional hardship for him. He died several months short of
his forty-third birthday in January 1955 in Lahore.