Mahasweta devi biography books list

Mahasweta Devi was a famed Indian novelist and writer of short stories, usually featuring female and/or subaltern characters.

Devi was born on January 14, 1926 in what is now Bangladesh. Her father was a writer and her mother and aunt educated illiterate girls in Dhaka, which inspired in Devi a life of service.

In 1947 Devi married playwright Bijon Bhattacharya, and they moved to Calcutta (now Kolkata) where they had a son.

Devi had to work odd jobs to supplement her husband’s income. She received a master’s degree in English from Shantiniketan, an experimental university founded by experimental poet Rabindranath Tagore.

Devi’s first novel was The Queen of Jhansi, a story based on an actual figure of a princess who fought and lost her life in the Mutiny of 1857 against the British, published in 1956 when she was 30.

She researched the story throughout northern India, and once said, “I have a firm opinion that the most precious historical material is what is preserved in the mem