Shashi Deshpande (born 1938) is an Indian novelist. She is a recipient of the

Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

and the

Padma Shri Padma Shri ( IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conf ...

Award in 1990 and 2009 respectively.

Biography

She was born in

Dharwad Dharwad (), also known as Dharwar, is a city located in the north western part of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is the headquarters of the Dharwad district of Karnataka and forms a contiguous urban area with the city of Hubballi. It was merge ...

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

, the second daughter of the Kannada dramatist and writer Adya Rangacharya and Sharada Adya. She was educated in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

(now Mumbai) and

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

. Deshpande has degrees in

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes ...

and

Law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

. In Mumbai, she studied

journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the " news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...

at the Vidya Bhavan and worked for a few months as a journalist for the magazine 'Onlooker'. She published her first collection of short stories in 1978, and her first novel, 'The Dark Holds No Terror', in 1980. She won the

for the novel ''That Long Silence'' in 1990 and the

award in 2009. Her novel ''Shadow Play'' was shortlisted for

The Hindu Literary Prize ''The Hindu'' Literary Prize or ''The Hindu'' Best Fiction Award, established in 2010, is an Indian literary award sponsored by ''The Hindu Literary Review'' which is part of the newspaper ''The Hindu''. It recognizes Indian works in English and ...

in 2014. Deshpande has written four children’s books, a number of short stories, thirteen novels, and an essay collection entitled ''Writing from the Margin and Other Essays''. On 9 October 2015, she resigned from her position in the

Sahitya Akademi The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...

's general council and returned her Sahitya Akademi award. In doing so, she joined a broader protest by other writers against the Akademi's perceived inaction and silence on the murder of M. M. Kalburgi. On 6 December 2018, during her inaugural address of the ninth edition of the Goa Arts and Literature Festival (GALF), Deshpande urged Indians to think about the consequences of wanting a Hindu nation, and reminded those present of the violence and carnage that had been caused by the India-Pakistan partition.

Selected bibliography

* ''The Dark Holds No Terrors'', Penguin Books India (1980), * ''If I Die Today'' (1982) * ''Come Up and Be Dead'' (1983) * '' Roots and Shadows'' (1983) * '' That Long Silence'', Penguin (paperback 1989), * ''The Intrusion and Other Stories'' (1993) * ''A Matter of Time'', The Feminist Press at CUNY (1996), * ''The Binding Vine'', The Feminist Press at CUNY (2002), * '' Small Remedies'', Penguin India (2000), * ''Moving On'', Penguin Books India (2004), * ''In the Country of Deceit'', Penguin/Viking (2008), * ''Shadow Play'', Aleph (2013), * ''Strangers to Ourselves'', HarperCollins (2015), ; Children's books * ''A Summer Adventure'' * ''The Hidden Treasure'' * ''The Only Witness'' * ''The Narayanpur Incident''

Memoir

* ''Listen to Me''

Collected Essays

* ''Writing from the Margin & Other Essays'', Penguin (2003),

References

External links

Feature on Women Writers, BBC World Service

{{DEFAULTSORT:Deshpande, Shashi 1938 births Indian women novelists Novelists from Karnataka Indian women children's writers Indian children's writers Living people Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in English Recipients of the Padma Shri in literature & education People from Dharwad English-language writers from India 20th-century Indian novelists Women writers from Karnataka 20th-century Indian women writers