Notes on Sashi Despande for NET, SET, JRF and English Literature students.
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)
Notes on Sri Aurobindo for NET, SET, JRF and English literature students.
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".
Notes on Toru Dutta for NET, SET, JRF an English Literature students.
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.
List of important Partition Novels for NET, SET, JRF Students.
Important Partition Novels
1) Train to Pakistan (1956)- Khuswant Singh
2) Tamas (1974) - Bhishm Sahini
3) A Bend in the Ganges (1965) - Manohar Malgaonkar
4) Ice Candy Man (1998) - Bapsi Sidhwa
5) Midnight's Children ( 1980) - Salman Rushdi
6) Clear Light of the Day - Anita Desai
7) Sunlight on a Broken Column(1961) - Attia Hussain
8) The Dark Dancer- B. Rajan
9) Azadi- Chaman Nahal
10) The Shadow Lines- Amitava Ghosh
11) A Storm in Chandigarh- Nayantara Sehgal
12) The Suitable Boy- Vikram Seth
13) The Rape- Raj Gill
14) What the Body Remembers- Shauna Singh Baldwin
15) A Golden Age- Tahmina Anam
16) The other Sides of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India- Urvashi Butalia
17) Freedom at Midnight- Larry Collins
18) Zero Defect- Aarohan Atwals
19) Twilight in Delhi- Ahmad Ali
20) Guilty Men of India's Partition- Ram Manohar Lohia
21) India After Gandhi: The History of World's Largest Democracy- Ramchandra Guha
22) Looking Through Glass- Mukul Keshavan
23) Pinjar( Skeleton) - Amrita Pritam
24) Interpreter of Maladies- Jhumpa Lahiri
25) A Fine Balance- Rohinton Mistry
This list is for NET, SET and JRF students of English Literature.
