Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the official language of Maharashtra, and an additional official language in the state of Goa used to reply provided the request is received in Marathi. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India, with 83 million speakers as of 2011. Marathi ranks 13th in the list of languages with most native speakers in the world. Marathi has the third largest number of native speakers in India, after Hindi and Bengali. The language has some of the oldest literature of all modern Indian languages. The major dialects of Marathi are Standard Marathi and the Varhadi dialect.
Prahlad Keshav Atre, popularly known as Āchārya Atre, was a prominent Marathi writer, poet, educationist, founder–editor of Maratha, and above all a noted orator.
Anand Ratan Yadav was a Marathi writer from Maharashtra, India. He is best known for his autobiography Zombi (झोंबी).
Namdev, also transliterated as Nam Dayv, Namdeo, Namadeva, was a Marathi Vaishnav saint from Narsi, Hingoli, Maharashtra, Medieval India within the Varkari tradition of Hinduism. He lived as a devotee of Lord Vitthal of Pandharpur.
Vithoba, also known as Vitthala, and Panduranga, is a Hindu god predominantly worshipped in the Indian state of Maharashtra and Karnataka. He is a form of the god Vishnu in his avatar: Krishna. Vithoba is often depicted as a dark young boy, standing arms akimbo on a brick, sometimes accompanied by his consort Rakhumai.
Chokhamela was a Hindu saint in Maharashtra, India in the 14th century. He belonged to the Mahar caste,, which was considered that time one of the low castes in India. He was born at Mehuna Raja, a village in Deulgaon Raja Taluka of Buldhana district. He lived at Mangalvedha in Maharashtra. He wrote many Abhangas. One of his famous Abhangas is 'Abir Gulal Udhlit Rang". Social activist Arvind Prabhakar Kayande Started Celebrating "Chokhamela Festival" in Deulgaon Raja. He was one of the first low-cast poets in India.
Shivaji Sawant was an Indian novelist in the Marathi language. He is known as Mrutyunjaykaar for writing the famous Marathi novel - Mrutyunjay. He was the first Marathi writer to be awarded with the Moortidevi Award in 1994.
The little magazine movement originated in the 1950s and 1960s in many Indian languages like Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Hindi, Malayalam and Gujarati, in the early part of the 20th century.
Swadesh Bharati is a Hindi poet, recipient of "Premchand Award" and "Sahitya Bhushan Award". He lives in Kolkata from where he edits Rupambara, a literary bilingual quarterly journal. He has been in active field of creative writing since more than 45 years. He is chairman of Rashtriya Hindi Academy and was guest lecturer at Madaras Christian Academy.
Atpadi is an administrative town of the Atpadi Taluka of Sangli District in the Indian state of Maharashtra. Atpadi is located north-east of Sangli District and shares borders with the adjacent Solapur and Satara Districts. The town has a taluka administrative office, a courthouse, a police station, a government-run primary hospital, various schools and colleges and a theater. Atpadi's economy is based on the cultivation and sale of agricultural products, with pomegranates and cotton constituting the core of the industry. The town is also home to the Manganga Sahakari Sugar factory, a Pomegranate auction center and various small scale industries in fields such as manufacturing, processing, servicing and repairs.
Amritlal Nagar was one of the prominent Hindi writers of the twentieth century.
Venkatesh Digambar Madgulkar was one of the most popular Marathi writers of his time. He became well-known mainly for his realistic writings about village life in a part of southern Maharashtra called Maandesh, set in a period of 15 to 20 years before and after Independence. He was often called Tatya by his admirers, friends and family.
Mangesh Keshav Padgaoankar was a legendary Marathi poet from Maharashtra, India.
Muktabai or Mukta was a saint in the Varkari Movement. She was born in a Deshastha Brahmin family and was the younger sister of Dnyaneshwar, the first Varkari saint. She wrote forty-one abhangs throughout her life.
Dr. Janardan Madhavrao Waghmare is an Indian politician and educationist. He has served as a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha from Maharashtra. He was also the President of the Latur Municipal Council.
Dalit literature is a genre of Indian writing that focuses on the lives, experiences, and struggles of the Dalit community, who have faced caste-based oppression and discrimination for centuries. This literature encompasses various Indian languages such as Marathi, Bangla, Hindi, Kannada, Punjabi, Sindhi, Odia and Tamil and includes diverse narratives like poems, short stories, and autobiographies. The movement originated in response to the caste-based social injustices in mid-twentieth-century independent India and has since spread across various Indian languages, critiquing caste practices and experimenting with different literary forms.
Sant Dnyaneshwar is a 1940 film about the life of Jñāneśvar (1275–1296), a 13th-century Marathi poet, philosopher, sant and yogi of the Nath tradition.
Girish Pandurang Kulkarni is an Indian actor, writer, and producer. He is a recipient of two National Film Awards namely, National Film Award for Best Actor in 2011 for his performance in Deool and National Film Award for Best Screenplay for the same film. He is well known for Marathi films such as Valu, Vihir, Deool, Gabhricha Paus and Jaundya Na Balasaheb. He is known to Hindi audiences for his role in the Aamir Khan starrer Dangal and Anurag Kashyap's movie Ugly. He received acclaim for his portrayal of gangster 'Appa' in the 2017 Marathi crime thriller Faster Fene opposite Amey Wagh. He also starred in India's first Netflix original series Sacred Games as the Maharashtra CM Bipin Bhosale character.
Vishnu Surya Naik Wagh was a poet, writer, dramatist, journalist, politician, management consultant, and trainer. He was a former member of the Legislative Assembly in Goa from 2012 to 2017 as a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. Owing to his fragile health, he had been on a break from his active career since 2016, until his death in 2019. His book, Sudhir Sukta, was a topic of much debate in 2017—2018 for its offensive language and content.
Dr. Anil Sapkal is an academician, creative writer in Marathi and a film maker. In 2014 he became a Professor at Marathi Department, University of Mumbai. He wrote the screen play and dialogue for the recent Marathi feature film Dhol Taashe.
