Mridula Garg


Mridula Garg is an Indian writer who writes in Hindi and English. She has published over 30 books in Hindi – novels, short story collections, plays and collections of essays – including several translated into English. She is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award.

Biography

Garg was raised in Delhi by her parents with five sisters and a brother, and began writing stories while she was a child. She completed her masters in economics in 1960 and taught economics in University of Delhi for three years.
She published her debut novel, Uske Hisse Ki Dhoop, in 1975. She was arrested for obscenity after her novel Chittacobra was published in 1979, in a case that extended for two years but did not result in prison. Several of her works have feminist themes, and she told The Hindu in 2010, "My writing is not feminist. One of the metaphors of womanhood is guilt, be it in sexual matters, in working woman or non-working. My women felt no guilt ever. It ruffled feathers. We have the cerebral part and the womb, which encompasses and empowers you but at the same time also tightens you. My kind of feminism is that each woman can be different."
She has been a columnist, writing on environment, women issues, child servitude and literature. She wrote a fortnightly column, Parivar in Ravivar magazine from Kolkata for five years between 1985-1990 and another column Kataksh in India Today for 7 years, between 2003 and 2010. Her novels and stories have been translated into a number of Indian and foreign languages like German, Czech, Japanese and English.
She was a research associate at the Center for South Asian Studies in the University of California-Berkeley, USA in April 1990. She has been invited to speak on Hindi literature and criticism, and discrimination against women, at universities and conferences in erstwhile Yugoslavia, the USA, and was a delegate to Interlit-3, Germany. She was invited to and Japan, Italy, Denmark and Russia. She traveled widely and lectured and read from her works there.

Hindi

  • Uske Hisse Ki Dhoop
  • Kitni Qaiden
  • Vanshaj
  • Tukra-Tukra Aadmi
  • Daffodil Jal Rahein Hain
  • Ek Aur Ajnabi
  • Chittacobra
  • Anitya
  • Main Aur Main
  • Glacier Se
  • Urf Sam
  • Shahar Ke Naam
  • Charchit Kahanaian
  • Jadoo Ka Kaleen
  • Teen Qaiden
  • Rang-Dhang
  • Kath Gulab
  • Samagam
  • Kuchh Atke Kuchh Bhatke
  • Chukte Nahin Sawaal
  • Kar Lenge Sab Hazam
  • Mere Desh Ki Mitti, Aha
  • Saam Daam Dand Bhed
  • Sangati-Visangti
  • Joote ka Jodh Gobhi ka Todh
  • Kriti Men Stree patr
  • Miljul Mann
  • Kriti Aur Kritikar
  • Mere Sang ki Aurten
  • Vasu ka Kutum

English

Translations

  • "Kathgulab" translated into Marathi and Malayalam
  • "Anitya" translated into Marathi from Anitya 2014
  • "Main Aur Main" translated into Marathi from Hindi.
  • "Miljul Mann" translated into Urdu, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu and Rajasthani from Hindi language.
  • "Chittacobra" translated into Russian. Sovpadeniye Publishing House. Moscow. Translated by Guzel Strelkova and Marina Parusova.

Awards

  • Sahityakar Sanman, by the Hindi Academy, Delhi,
  • Sahitya Bhushan, by the U.P. Hindi Sansthan
  • Hellman-Hammet Grant for Courageous Writing by the Human Rights Watch, New York
  • Honored for lifetime contribution to literature in the Vishwa Hindi Sammelan in Suriname in 2003.
  • Vyas Samman, for an outstanding work of fiction in Hindi for Kathgulab
  • Uske Hisse ki Dhoop and Jadoo Ka Kaleen awarded by the M.P. Sahitya Parishad in 1975 and 1993 respectively.
  • Miljul Mann awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013
  • Mira Smriti Samman award for distinguished contribution to contemporary Hindi literature
  • Ram Manohar Lohia Samman from U.P Hindi Sansthan
  • D. Litt. "Honoris Causa" from ITM University, Gwalior