Amrita Pritam was an Indian novelist, essayist and poet, who wrote in Punjabi and Hindi. A prominent figure in Punjabi literature, she is the recipient of the 1956 Sahitya Akademi Award. Her body of work comprised over 100 books of poetry, fiction, biographies, essays, a collection of Punjabi folk songs and an autobiography that were all translated into several Indian and foreign languages.
Ottupulackal Velukkuty Vijayan, commonly known as O. V. Vijayan, was an Indian author and cartoonist, who was an important figure in modern Malayalam language literature. Best known for his first novel Khasakkinte Itihasam (1969), Vijayan was the author of six novels, nine short-story collections, and nine collections of essays, memoirs and reflections.
Sankarankutty Kunjiraman Pottekkatt was an Indian writer of Malayalam literature and a politician from Kerala, India. He was also a great traveller among the Keralites, who wrote many travelogues for the people who have been unintroduced to the outside world. He was the author of nearly sixty books which include ten novels, twenty-four collections of short stories, three anthologies of poems, eighteen travelogues, four plays, a collection of essays and a couple of books based on personal reminiscences. He is a recipient of Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Novel, Sahitya Akademi Award and the Jnanpith Award. His works have been translated into English, Italian, Russian, German and Czech, besides all major Indian languages.
Kamleshwar Prasad Saxena, known mononymously as Kamleshwar, was a 20th-century Indian writer who wrote in Hindi. He also worked as a screenwriter for Indian films and television industry. Among his most well-known works are the films Aandhi, Mausam, Chhoti Si Baat and Rang Birangi. He was awarded the 2003 Sahitya Akademi Award for his Hindi novel Kitne Pakistan, and the Padma Bhushan in 2005.
Mannu Bhandari Yadav was an Indian author, screenplay writer, teacher, and playwright. Primarily known for her two Hindi novels, Aap Ka Bunty and Mahabhoj (Feast), Bhandari also wrote over 150 short stories, several other novels, screenplays for television and film, and adaptations for theater. She was a pioneer of the Nayi Kahani movement in Hindi literature, which focused on the aspirations of the emerging Indian middle class, and her own work is notable for its depiction of the inner lives of middle class working and educated women. Her work tackles themes of family, relationships, gender equality, and caste discrimination in India.
The partition of India and the associated bloody riots inspired many creative minds in India and Pakistan to create literary/cinematic depictions of this event. While some creations depicted the massacres during the refugee migration, others concentrated on the aftermath of the partition in terms of difficulties faced by the refugees in both side of the border. Even now, more than 60 years after the partition, works of fiction and films are made that relate to the events of partition.
Bhagwati Charan Verma was a Hindi author. He wrote many novels, his best work was Chitralekha (1934), which was made into two successful Hindi films in 1941 and 1964 respectively. He was awarded Sahitya Akademi Award for his epic five-part novel, Bhoole Bisre Chitra in 1961 and Padma Bhushan in 1971. He was also nominated to Rajya Sabha in 1978.
Shashi Deshpande is an Indian novelist. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Shri Award in 1990 and 2009 respectively.
Bhisham Sahni was an Indian writer, playwright in Hindi and an actor, most famous for his novel and television screenplay Tamas, a powerful and passionate account of the Partition of India. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan for literature in 1998, and Sahitya Akademi Fellowship in 2002. He was the younger brother of the noted Hindi film actor, Balraj Sahni.
Rajinder Singh Bedi was an Indian Urdu writer of the progressive writers' movement and a playwright, who later worked in Hindi cinema as a film director, screenwriter and dialogue writer and he is grandfather Rajat Bedi an Manek Bedi.
Krishna Sobti was an Indian Hindi-language fiction writer and essayist. She won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1980 for her novel Zindaginama and in 1996, was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest award of the Akademi. In 2017, she received the Jnanpith Award for her contribution to Indian literature.
Sampooran Singh Kalra, known professionally as Gulzar, is an Indian Urdu poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, and film director known for his works in Hindi cinema. He is regarded as one of greatest Urdu poets of this era. He started his career with music director S.D. Burman as a lyricist in the 1963 film Bandini and worked with many music directors including R. D. Burman, Salil Chowdhury, Vishal Bhardwaj and A. R. Rahman. Gulzar also writes poetry, dialogues and scripts. He directed films such as Aandhi and Mausam during the 1970s and the TV series Mirza Ghalib in the 1980s. He also directed Kirdaar in 1993.
Gracy is a Malayalam author. Her first collection of short stories, Padiyirangippoya Parvati, was published in 1991. Her awards include the Lalithambika Antharjanam Award (1995), the Thoppil Ravi Award (1997), the Katha Prize for the Best Malayalam Short Story (1998) and the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award (2000). Her major works are Narakavaathil, Randu Swapna Darsikal, Kaveriyude Neru, Eezbu Penkathakal, Panikkannu and a collection, Gracyude Kathakal. Her stories have been translated into English, Hindi, Tamil and Oriya. She was the head of the Malayalam department, Al-Ameen college, Edathala, Aluva.
Uday Prakash is a Hindi poet, scholar, journalist, translator and short story writer from India. He has worked as administrator, editor, researcher, and TV director. He writes for major dailies and periodicals as a freelancer. He has also received several awards for his collection of short stories and poems. With Mohan Das he received Sahitya Academi Awards in 2011. He is the first author to return his Sahitya Akademi award on Sep 3, 2015 against the killing of M. M. Kalburgi that initiated a storm of national protests by writers, artists,scholars and intellectuals. .
Santanu Kumar Acharya is a National Sahitya Academy Award-winning Indian writer.
Sukrita Paul Kumar is an Indian poet, critic, and academician. She has been the chief editor of Cultural Diversity, Linguistic Plurality and Literary Traditions of India - a textbook prescribed by the University of Delhi for course use in its Honours B.A. programme.
Bindu Bhat is a Gujarati language novelist, storywriter, critic and translator from Gujarat, India. Her novel Akhepatar (1999) received the Sahitya Akademi Award for the year 2003. Her other significant works include Mira Yagnikni Dayari (1992) and Bandhani (2009).
Dr. Yashodhara Mishra is a Odia writer and poet. She is a professor of English who has published poems, several collections of short stories and novels. She was a fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study.
Sharifa Vijaliwala is an Indian Gujarati language writer, critic, translator and editor from Surat, Gujarat, India. She is a recipient of a 2018 Sahitya Akademi Award for Vibhajanni Vyatha, a collection of critical essays in Gujarati, and has won several Gujarat Sahitya Akademi awards for her literary work.
