Shashi Deshpande (1938-2016)

> Shashi Despande is an award winning Indian novelist. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award for the novel "That Long Silence" in 1990. 

>She was born in "Karnataka" and known as 'Daughter of Kannada'. >She published her first collection of short stories in 1978 and her first novel "the dark holds no terror "in 1980

 > She was awarded Padma Shri in 2009.

 >Her novel Shadow Play was shortlisted for The Hindu Literary Prize in 2014.

>She has written 4 children books, 9 novels and a number of short stories and essays. >In 2015, she resigned from her position on the Sahitya Akademi General Council and returned her Sahitya Akademi Award.

>She joined the protest against Akademi's perceived inaction and silence on the murder of M. M. Kalburgi.

>Shashi Deshpande denied accepting that she is a feminist writer by saying "I don't like to call myself a feminist writer. I say I am a feminist but I don't write to propagate an ism".

Important works of Deshpande:

1) The Dark Holds No Terror ( 1980) 

2) If I die Today (1982)

3) Come Up and Be Dead (1989)

4) That Long Silence: The Unavoidable Silence of an Indian Woman (1989)

5) Small Remedies (2000)

6) In the Country of Deceit (2008)

7) Roots and Shadows (1973)

Children Books:

1) A Summer Adventure 

2) The Hidden Treasure

 3)  The Only Witness 

4)  The Narayanpur Incident (1995)

 Sri Aurobindo( 1872- 1950)

>Sri Aurobindo (Aurobindo Ghose) was an Indian nationalist, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet.

>He introduced his visions on human progress and spiritual evolution. He was imprisoned by the British for writing articles against British rule in India. 

>His main literary works are "The Life Divine" which deals with theoretical aspects of Integral Yoga Savitri: a Legend and a Symbol an Epic Poem which refers to passage in The Mahabahatra where characters actualize integral yoga in their lives.

>His works also include Philosophy, poetry, translations and commentaries on Vedas, Upnishads and Bhagavad Gita.

>He was nominated for the Noble Prize for literature in 1943 and for Peace Prize in 1950.

> He started a monthly philosophical magazine called “Arya”. 

> Letters on Yoga appeared in 3 volumes.

➤ The American philosopher Ken Wilber has called Aurobindo "India's greatest modern philosopher sage".

Important Works of Aurobindo

1) Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol

It is an epic poem in blank verse based upon the theology of Mahabharata.

2) The Life Divine

3) The Synthesis of Yoga

4) Hymus to the Mystic Fire

> Famous Quote by Sri Aurobindo:

"The voice of poetry comes from a region above us, a plane of our being above and beyond our personal intelligence".

 Ruskin Bond ( 1934-) 

>Ruskin bond is an Indian author of British descent. 

>The Indian Council of Child Education, has recognized his role in the growth of children's literature in India. 

>He got Sahitya Akademi Award in the year 1992, for "Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra", his published works in English. It contains 14 stories.

 >He was awarded Padma Shree Award in the year 1999 and Padma Bhusan in 2014.

>Bond said: "The past is always with us, for it feeds the present".

>Bond's "A Fight of Pigeons" novel set in 1857 about Ruth Labadoor and her family of Hindus and Muslims is adapted into film "Junoon".

Important Works of Ruskin Bond

1) The Room of the Roof (1956)

2) The Blue Umbrella (1974)

3) The Night Train at Deoli and Other Stories (1988)

 4) The Best of Ruskin Bond (2000) 

 5) Our Trees still Grow in Dehra (1991)

 6) Out of Darkness (Lyrical Poem)

These notes are very important for NTA NET, SET and others examination. 

 Toru Dutta ( 1856-1877) 

> Toru Dutt was an Indian poet who wrote in English and French.

> She died at a very young age of 21. She was a poet, novelist and translator. She was born in Calcutta.

> She translated some sonnets of de Cramont and regarded him as one of the best modern French poets. 

> She is considered as the "First English writing women of India".

 > Edmund goose wrote about her that "she brought with her from Europe a store of knowledge that would have sufliced to make an English or French girl seemed learned."

Most important Works of Toru Dutt: 

>Our Casurina Tree

>Tree of life

> The Lotus

> Bougmaree

> France

> Amon Pere  :It is praised world-wide and considered "faultless". 

> Le Journel De Medmoiselle d'Arvers (1879)

*This is the first novel in French by an Indian writer.

* It was published poshtumously.

> Bianca, or the Young Spanish Maiden ( 1879) 

* It is the first novel in English by an Indian writer.