Come back every Wednesday for a new set of five! This week we have Giriraj Kishore, Srikant Verma, Nagarjun, Agyeya and Kedarnath Singh.
Pehla Girmitiya by Giriraj Kishore
The novel, beginning with the familiar incident of being thrown off train, traces Gandhi's journey that sensitized him to the plight of the girmitiyas (bonded labours) in nineteenth century South Africa, and the impact it had for humanity world over.
Magadh by Srikant Verma
Translated as Magadh by Rahul Soni
This collection of poetry, from an author who was a part of the Nai Kavita movement, won the Sahitya Akademi Award. Speaking both archly and urgently through unreliable narrators—commoners, statesmen, wanderers, people close to power (but never in power)—often like a kind of prudent and duplicitous advice for the ears of monarchs, the 56 poems range widely in tone from nostalgic to ironic to bitter to sorrowful.
Baba Batesharnath by Nagarjun
Sahitya Akademi Award-winning author Vaidyanath Mishra was popularly known by his pen name Nagarjun which he adopted when he converted to Buddhism. Written under said name, this novel is narrated by a tree and set in rural Bihar during the British Rule. His works are often influenced by his activist work as well as Marxist ideology.
Shekhar Ek Jeevani by Agyeya
Translated as Shekhar: A Life by Snehal Shingavi and Vasudha Dalmia
Sachchidananda Vatsyayan, who wrote under the pen name Agyeya, was sentenced to four years of imprisonment for aiding Bhagat Singh. It was in prison that he wrote the first draft of Shekhar Ek Jeevani. Later, he published the second volume which won him the Jnanpith Award, but the third volume remained unfinished. The biographical novel powerfully reimagines the journey of an outspoken young underground revolutionary in pre-Independence India. Indeed, it is recognized as being the first Hindi novel to have deployed Freudian approaches to the workings of the mind.
Akaal Mein Saras by Kedarnath Singh
This collection of poetry brings out Singh's characteristic style: simple and everyday language is used to create powerful imagery that is strung together to to convey complex themes. It won him the Sahitya Akademi Award.
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