Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami was an Indian writer known for his work set in the fictional South Indian town of Malgudi. He was a leading author of early Indian literature in English along with Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao.
Anita Desai, born Anita Mazumdar is an Indian novelist and the Emerita John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a writer she has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. She received a Sahitya Akademi Award in 1978 for her novel Fire on the Mountain, from the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. She won the British Guardian Prize for The Village by the Sea. The Peacock, Voices in the City, Fire on the Mountain and an anthology of short stories, Games at Twilight. She is on the advisory board of the Lalit Kala Akademi and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, London.
Indian English literature (IEL), also referred to as Indian Writing in English (IWE), is the body of work by writers in India who write in the English language and whose native or co-native language could be one of the numerous languages of India. Its early history began with the works of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio and Michael Madhusudan Dutt followed by Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo. R. K. Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand and Raja Rao contributed to the growth and popularity of Indian English fiction in the 1930s. It is also associated, in some cases, with the works of members of the Indian diaspora who subsequently compose works in English.
Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, popularly known as Thakazhi after his place of birth, was an Indian novelist and short story writer of Malayalam literature. He wrote over 30 novels and novellas and over 7 short stories focusing on the lives of the oppressed classes. Known for his works such as Kayar and Chemmeen, Pillai was a recipient of the Padma Bhushan, the third highest Indian civilian award. He was also a recipient of the Jnanpith, India's highest literary award, awarded in 1984 for the novel Kayar.
Manoj Das was an Indian author who wrote in Odia and English. In 2000, Manoj Das was awarded the Saraswati Samman. He was awarded Padma Shri in 2001, the fourth-highest Civilian Award in India, Padma Bhusan in 2020, the third highest Civilian Award in India for his contribution in the field of Literature & Education.
Odia literature is literature written in the Odia language and predominantly originates in the Indian state of Odisha. The modern Odia language is formed mostly from Tadbhava words with significant Sanskrit (Tatsama), influences along with some loanwoards from Desaja, English, Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu), Persian, and Arabic. The earliest written texts in the language are around one thousand years old. The earliest Odia newspaper was Utkala Deepika, first published on August 4, 1866.
Gopinath Mohanty (1914–1991), winner of the Jnanpith award, and the first winner of the National Sahitya Akademi Award in 1955 – for his novel, Amrutara Santana – was a prolific Odia writer of the mid-twentieth century. Satya Prakash Mohanty, professor of English, Cornell University says: "In my opinion, Gopinath Mohanty is the most important Indian novelist in the second half of the twentieth century."
Pattathuvila Karunakaran (1925–1988) was an Indian film producer and short story writer of Malayalam literature. He was best known for his book, Vimarsham and for his association with the film, Uttarayanam, the directorial debut of noted filmmaker, G. Aravindan, as the film's producer and story writer. Kerala Sahitya Akademi awarded him their annual award for story in 1972.
Lakshmi Holmström MBE was an Indian-British writer, literary critic, and translator of Tamil fiction into English. Her most prominent works were her translations of short stories and novels by contemporary writers in Tamil, such as Mauni, Pudhumaipithan, Ashoka Mitran, Sundara Ramasami, C. S. Lakshmi, Bama, and Imayam. She obtained her undergraduate degree in English literature from the University of Madras and her postgraduate degree from University of Oxford. Her postgraduate work was on the work of R. K. Narayan. She was the founder-trustee of SALIDAA – an organisation archiving the work of British writers and artists of South Asian origin. She lived in the United Kingdom.
Hema Saraswati was amongst the earliest known Assamese writers, most known for his poem, Prahlada Charita, the earliest known poetic work in Assamese language. He was court poet under the patronage of Kamtapur's King Durlabh Narayan of Kamata Kingdom, who also provided patronage to his contemporary, Harivara Vipra. He wrote Prahlada Charita based on a story found in Vayu Purana and Har-Gauri-Sambaad, a version of Kumarasambhava by Kalidasa.
Santanu Kumar Acharya is a National Sahitya Academy Award-winning Indian writer.
Sundarikalum Sundaranmarum is a 1958 Malayalam novel written by Uroob. Sundarikalum Sundaranmarum along with Ummachu are considered the best works by Uroob and are ranked among the finest novels in Malayalam.
Bhabani Bhattacharya was an Indian writer, of Bengali origin, who wrote social-realist fiction. He was born in Bhagalpur, part of the Bengal Presidency in British India. Bhattacharya gained a bachelor's degree from Patna University and a doctorate from the University of London. He returned to India and joined the diplomatic service. Bhattacharya served in the United States, to which country he returned as a teacher of literary studies once he had left the service. He taught in Hawaii, and later in Seattle. In his mid-thirties Bhattacharya began writing fiction set in historically and socially realistic contexts. He wrote in English, his chosen medium following the advice of two prominent literary figures.
An Artist in Life is a biography of Rabindranath Tagore first published in 1967 by the University of Kerala. The book, written by Niharranjan Ray took 15 years to research and publish. The biography also presents a critical study of all Tagore's works.
Scholar Extraordinary is a biography of Max Müller published by Chatto & Windus in 1974. The book was written by Nirad C. Chaudhuri. In addition to detailing the life of Müller, Chaudhuri also places in context the social and psychological aspects of the era and handles Müller's actions with that backdrop.
Kanhu Charan Mohanty was an Indian Odia language novelist who wrote fifty-six novels in a career spanning over six decades from 1930 to 1985. He is considered "one of the most popular and celebrated novelists of Odisa". Mohanty was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958 for his novel, Kaa, published in 1956, and was one of the fellows of the Sahitya Akademi. Mohanty died on 6 April 1994 at the age of 87.
Sumana Roy is an Indian writer and poet. Her works include How I Became a Tree (2017), a work of non-fiction; Missing (2019), a novel; Out of Syllabus (2019), a collection of poems; and My Mother's Lover and Other Stories (2019), a short story collection. Her unpublished novel Love in the Chicken’s Neck was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize (2008). Her first book, How I Became a Tree, a work of non-fiction, was shortlisted for the 2017 Shakti Bhatt Prize.
