Bhisham Sahni (1915-2003) was an iconic writer who transformed the landscape of Hindi literature. His oeuvre encompassed novels, plays, short stories and essays. Tamas, his best known novel, won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1975 and was subsequently adapted into a National Award-winning film by Govind Nihalani. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1998, and the Shlaka Award, the Delhi government's highest literary prize, in 1999.
SHVETA SARDA is the translator of Trickster City (Bahurupiya Shehr) by Azra Tabassum et al. (Penguin Books India, New Delhi, 2010), co-editor of Cybermohalla Hub (Sternberg Press, Berlin, 2012), and editor of With an Untimely Calendar (National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, 2014). Between 2001 and 2013, during her time at Delhi's creative adventure called Sarai, she worked with writers and practitioners in working-class neighbourhoods across the city.
'An icon in Hindi literature'-The Hindu
The braid of young Basanti's life thickens with time. Feisty and fearless, she plays hide and seek with her overbearing father, dodges the crippled old tailor whom she's sold to and elopes with a handsome young man. Unwilling to let anyone suppress her spirit, she even rejects the benevolence of Shyama bibi, her confidante and employer.
With the thunderous clap of demolition of a basti in Delhi and a complex understanding of the confluence of classes, renowned writer Bhisham Sahni gives voice, laughter and resolve to a persona who might have otherwise coursed silently away through the veins of this megacity.
