Shobha De (''

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

'' Rajadhyaksha, formerly Kilachand; born 7 January 1948) is an Indian novelist and columnist. She is best known for her depiction of socialites and sex in her works of fiction, for which she has been referred to as the "

Jackie Collins Jacqueline Jill Collins (4 October 1937 – 19 September 2015) was an English romance novelist and actress. She moved to Los Angeles in 1985 and spent most of her career there. She wrote 32 novels, all of which appeared on The New York Times B ...

of India."

Early life and education

Shobhaa De was born on 7 January 1948 in Satara district,

Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...

and brought up in

Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...

(now Mumbai). in a

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India **Marathi people (Uttar Pradesh), the Marathi people in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Mar ...

family. Her father was a district court judge, and her mother was a home-maker. The youngest of four siblings, she has two sisters and a brother. Shobha grew up in Mumbai, where she attended Queen Mary School. She graduated from Saint Xavier's College.

Career

At age 17, she began her career as a model, which lasted for five years. At age 20, she began her career as a journalist, writing "agony aunt" advice columns and features for society magazines. She was the editor of the magazine '' Stardust'' from 1995, which included Bollywood interviews, gossip, and photographs. In the 1980s, she contributed to the Sunday magazine section of ''

The Times of India ''The Times of India'' (''TOI'') is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by the Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, third-largest newspaper in India by circulation an ...

''. She has since been a regular columnist for several newspapers. She has also written several popular soaps on television. Ankita Shukla wrote for ''The Times of India'', in 2016, that "unignorable has been Shobhaa De's unabashed description of the womenfolk in her novels. De's women range from traditional, subjugated and marginalized to the extremely modern and liberated women. De's novels take a leaf the urban life and represent realistically an intimate side of urban woman's life, also revealing her plight in the present day society." In 1992, Mark Fineman of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' described her as "India's hottest-selling English-language novelist," and how her second novel, ''Starry Nights'' (1991), had "a drawing of a nude woman on the front cover," and according to De, "they said it was the first time they’d broken through the ‘F’ barrier, the first time they’d run the F-word without asterisks." Urmee Khan writes for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' in 2007, "Her books are steeped in a lifetime's observation of Bollywood," and "They describe a side of the country that western audiences rarely encounter, her central themes being power, greed, lust and sex." In 2010, De and

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

created the publishing imprint Shobhaa De Books. De has also participated in several literary festivals, including the Bangalore Literature Festival, having been part of it since its first edition.

Personal life

De has married twice, is mother of six children and has six grandchildren. After graduation, Shobha married Sudhir Vrajlal Kilachand of the Kilachand Marwari business family, with whom she has a son and a daughter. The marriage ended in divorce. Shobha then married Dilip De, a Bengali businessman in the shipping industry, with whom she has two daughters. Dilip also has two children from his previous marriage.

Books

* ''Srilaaji – Diary of a Marwari Matriarch'', Simon & Schuster (2020) * ''Lockdown Laisons'' (2020) * ''Small Betrayals'' −

Hay House Hay House is a publisher founded in 1984 by author Louise Hay, who is known for her books on New Thought. ''The New York Times'' dubbed Hay "The Queen of the New Age," noting that she became "one of the bestselling authors in ...

India, New Delhi, 2014 * ''Seventy And to Hell with It'' (2017) * ''Shobhaa: Never a Dull De'' − Hay House India, New Delhi, 2013 * ''Shethji'' −2012 * ''Shobhaa at Sixty'' −Hay House India, New Delhi, 2010 * ''Sandhya's secret'' −2009 * ''Superstar India'' – From Incredible to Unstoppable * ''Strange Obsession'' * ''Snapshots'' * ''Spouse: The truth about marriage'' (2005) * ''

Speedpost Express mail is an expediting, expedited mail delivery service for which the customer pays a premium for faster delivery. Express mail is a service for domestic and international mail, and is in most nations governed by the country's own postal ad ...

'' – Penguin, New Delhi. 1999. * ''Surviving Men'' – Penguin, New Delhi, 1998 * ''Selective Memory'' – Penguin, New Delhi. 1998. * '' Second Thoughts'' – Penguin, New Delhi. 1996. * ''Small betrayals'' – UBS Publishers' Distributors, 1995 * ''Shooting from the hip'' – UBS, Delhi, 1994. * ''Sultry Days'' – Penguin, New Delhi. 1994. * ''Sisters'' – Penguin, New Delhi. 1992. * '' Starry Nights'' – 1989, India, Penguin, New Delhi , Pub date ? ? 1989, paperback * '' Socialite Evenings'' – 1989, India, Penguin, New Delhi , Pub date ? ?

References

External links