Mahasweta Devi

Mahasweta Devi Biography

Mahasweta Devi is an Indian social activist and writer. She received Jnanpith award in the year 1996 for her Bengali work, Hajar Churashir Maa. Mahasweta Devi was born in 1926 in Dhaka as the daughter of Manish Ghatak, a well-known poet and novelist of the Kallol era. Noted filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak was the youngest brother of her father. Mahasweta’s mother Dharitri Devi was also a writer and a social worker.

Her first schooling was in Dhaka, but after the partition of India she moved to West Bengal in India. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree with honours from Vishvabharati University in Santiniketan. Later she completed MA in English literature from Calcutta University. Then she got married to Bijon Bhattacharya, a renowned playwright and one of the founding fathers of the IPTA movement. In 1948, she gave birth to Nabarun Bhattacharya, a leading novelist at present. But she divorced Bijon Bhattacharya in the year 1959.

In 1964, she began teaching at Bijoygarh College and during the same period, she started her career as a journalist and creative writer. Her best still now is regarded as Hajar Churashir Maa, for which she won the highest literary prize for Indian literature. Other noted works include - Aranyer Adhikar, The Queen of Jhansi, Dust on the Road, Bashai Tudu, Of Women, Outcasts, Peasants, and Rebels , Rudali, Imaginary Maps, Chotti Munda evam Tar Tir, The Book of the Hunter, Breast Stories, Outcast and Kulaputra. Many of her noted works have been made feature films of which Rudali and Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa need special mention.

She has received Sahitya Akademi Award (Bengali) in 1979 for Aranyer Adhikar, Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1997 for Journalism, Literature and the Creative Communication Arts, Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement in 2012 and Honoris causa in 1999 from IGNOU. She has also received Padma Vibhushan and Yashwantrao Chavan National Award.

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Updated: November 20, 2013