Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

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Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (born 1983) is an Indian writer.

Life[]

Ethnically, Shekhar is a Santhal, one of India's Adivasi groups; this background is reflected in his fiction.[1] His stories are rich in "fine details that add to the deep dimensions" and "open to us a world we have deliberately dismissed" [2] and contain "a surplus of understanding that comes from a kind insider-outsider."[3] Indeed, he characterised his first novel as "the first full-fledged Santhal novel written in English, and published by a mainstream publisher."[4] Born in Ranchi,[5] Shekhar grew up in Ghatshila and Chakulia and went to school in Musabani.[6][7][8] His parents used to work with Hindustan Copper in Ghatshila.[9] By profession, he is a medical doctor and is employed as a medical officer with the government of Jharkhand,[10][11] based in 2017 in Pakur.[12]

Though Shekhar writes primarily in English, he also translates from Santhali to English [13][14][15] and Hindi to English.[16][17]

Works[]

  • The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey (New Delhi: Aleph Book Company, 2014) ISBN 9789382277323
  • The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories (New Delhi: Speaking Tiger Books, 2015) ISBN 9789385288647
  • Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire: Adventures in Champakbagh (featuring illustrations by Krishna Bala Shenoi)[18] (New Delhi: Talking Cub - an imprint of Speaking Tiger - 2018) ISBN 9789387693975[19][20]
  • My Father's Garden (New Delhi: Speaking Tiger, 2018) ISBN 9789388326223[21][22]
  • Who's There? (featuring illustrations by Anupama Ajinkya Apte) (Chennai: Duckbill Books - an imprint of Penguin Random House India - 2020) ISBN 9780143450788[23]
  • Sumi Budhi and Sugi (featuring illustrations by Joanna Mendes) (Bengaluru: Pratham Books, 2020)[24]

Awards[]

For his debut novel, The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey, Shekhar won the 2015 Yuva Puraskar,[25][26] was shortlisted for the 2014 Hindu Literary Prize[27] and the 2014 Crossword Book Award,[28] longlisted for the 2016 International Dublin Literary Award,[29] and jointly won the 2015 Muse India Young Writer Award.[30] The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey was named by The Hindu in December 2019 as one of the ten best fiction books of the decade.[31]

For his second book, The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories, Shekhar was shortlisted for the 2016 Hindu Literary Prize.[32]

Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire: Adventures in Champakbagh is Shekhar's first book for children.[33] This book features illustrations by Krishna Bala Shenoi.[34] It was shortlisted for a 2019 Neev Book Award in the category Junior Readers[35] and a 2019 Crossword Book Award in the children’s books category.[36]

His fourth book, a novel entitled My Father's Garden, has been called "rich and surprising"[37] and "[packing] more emotion, detail and narrative heft than...books four times its size."[38] My Father's Garden was shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2019.[39][40]

Controversy[]

On 11 August 2017, the government of Jharkhand banned The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories and summarily suspended Shekhar from his job, on the grounds that the book portrayed Adivasi women and Santhal culture in a bad light.[41] The key complainants appear to have been the ruling party in Jharkhand, the Bharatiya Janata Party; the opposition party, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha; and an academic at Jamia Millia Islamia.[42] The government's actions were widely criticised.[43][44][45][46] The ban on The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories was removed in December 2017[47][48] and Shekhar's suspension was removed and he was reinstated into his job in 2018.[49][50]

References[]

  1. ^ Ziya Us Salam, 'A Santhal Suppressed', Frontline (13 October 2017).
  2. ^ Binoo K. John (November 30, 2015). "The tribal world strikes back at Indian writing in English through a doctor". Scroll. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
  3. ^ Sumana Roy (October 17, 2015). "Faith in the local". Livemint. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
  4. ^ Sujit Prasad, '“I Am a Santhal, and My Opinion Too Should Matter,” says Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar', antiserious.com (16 August 2017) [repr. from the Boston Coffee House Magazine 2014].
  5. ^ Kaartikeya Bajpai (January 18, 2015). "Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar is a dedicated doctor and writer". DNA. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
  6. ^ Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, 'Not just one', The Hindu Business Line (24 July 2015)
  7. ^ Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (April 23, 2016). "Ghatsila: A nostalgist's map". Mint Lounge/Livemint. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
  8. ^ Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (April–June 2018). "Black". The Indian Quarterly. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
  9. ^ Paromita Chakrabarti (September 2, 2018). "Playing with Fire: Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar on his first children's book". The Indian Express. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
  10. ^ Binoo K. John (November 30, 2015). "The tribal world strikes back at Indian writing in English through a doctor". Scroll. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
  11. ^ Sudipta Datta, 'Who is Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, fighting a ban', The Hindu (19 August 2017).
  12. ^ Ziya Us Salam, 'A Santhal Suppressed', Frontline (13 October 2017).
  13. ^ Parimal Hansda (August 20, 2017). "Eight melancholic, introspective poems by Parimal Hansda on being a Santhal today". Scroll. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  14. ^ Shibu Tudu. "Memories of the Kirta Dangra". Asymptote. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  15. ^ Shibu Tudu. "Memories of the Kirta Dangra (Santhali)". Asymptote. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  16. ^ Manish Mundra (September 16, 2017). "I am from the Earth". The Hindu. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  17. ^ Ranendra (August 2, 2018). "Baba, Crows and Black Smoke". Usawa literary Review. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  18. ^ "Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire: Adventures in Champakbagh". Goodbooks. Retrieved December 7, 2019.
  19. ^ "Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire". Speaking Tiger Books. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  20. ^ Duckbill Books (July 21, 2018). "New Indian Kids' and YA Books in August 2018". The Duckbill Blog. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  21. ^ Prasun Chaudhuri (April 1, 2018). "'Those accusing me of objectifying women were all bullying women'". The Telegraph, Kolkata. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
  22. ^ "My Father's Garden". Speaking Tiger Books. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  23. ^ "Who's There?". Penguin Random House India. Retrieved April 22, 2020.
  24. ^ "Sumi Budhi and Sugi". Pratham Books StoryWeaver. Retrieved April 22, 2020.
  25. ^ Sahitya Akademi. "List of Yuva Puraskar winners (2011-2017)". Sahitya Akademi. Archived from the original on August 5, 2016. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  26. ^ Sudipta Datta, 'Who is Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, fighting a ban', The Hindu (19 August 2017).
  27. ^ "Here's the shortlist". The Hindu. October 5, 2014. Retrieved December 24, 2014.
  28. ^ Arunima Mazumdar (April 4, 2015). "Meet the contenders: the Crossword Book Award 2014 shortlists for fiction and non-fiction". Scroll. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  29. ^ "The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey". International Dublin Literary Award. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  30. ^ GK News Network (December 21, 2015). "Shahnaz Bashir's The Half Mother declared winner of Muse India award". Greater Kashmir. Retrieved August 12, 2018.
  31. ^ "Best fiction books of the decade". The Hindu. December 28, 2019. Retrieved January 5, 2020.
  32. ^ "Shortlist for The Hindu Prize 2016 announced". The Hindu. October 16, 2016. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
  33. ^ Kanishka Gupta (August 9, 2018). "Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar on writing his first children's book, depicting small-town India in fiction". Firstpost. Retrieved August 13, 2018.
  34. ^ "Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire: Adventures in Champakbagh". Goodbooks. Retrieved December 7, 2019.
  35. ^ "Neev Literature Festival 2019 Book Awards". Neev Literature Festival. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
  36. ^ "Crossword Book Award: Women writers sweep fiction shortlist". Outlook. Retrieved December 7, 2019.
  37. ^ Keshava Guha (February 2, 2019). "'My Father's Garden by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar: Something rich and surprising". The Hindu. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
  38. ^ Saudha Kasim (February 7, 2019). "The Simple Prose of My Father's Garden Cuts Like a Knife". TheWire. Retrieved February 18, 2019.
  39. ^ Scroll Staff (October 4, 2019). "JCB Prize 2019 shortlist: An acknowledgement that Indian fiction is now raw, brutal and angry". Scroll. Retrieved October 6, 2019.
  40. ^ Press Trust of India (November 3, 2019). "Madhuri Vijay's debut novel 'The Far Field' wins 2019 JCB prize for Literature". The Hindu. Retrieved November 28, 2019.
  41. ^ Sudipta Datta, 'Who is Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, fighting a ban', The Hindu (19 August 2017).
  42. ^ Ziya Us Salam, 'A Santhal Suppressed', Frontline (13 October 2017).
  43. ^ Sanjay Srivastava, 'What the ban on The Adivasi Will Not Dance tells us about India’s political life', Hindustan Times (14 August 2017).
  44. ^ Ruchir Joshi, 'The reader will not dance', The Hindu (13 August 2017).
  45. ^ 'Dubbed 'porn', book on tribals banned in Jharkhand', The Times of India (13 August 2017).
  46. ^ 'Writers, Activists Condemn Banning of ‘The Adivasi Will Not Dance’ in Jharkhand', The Wire (29 August 2017).
  47. ^ Scroll Staff (December 13, 2017). "Four months after ban, Jharkhand finds nothing objectionable in Hansda Shekhar's book on Adivasis". Scroll. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
  48. ^ Prashant Pandey (December 14, 2017). "Jharkhand: Govt finds nothing objectionable in Santhal writer's book, ban could be lifted". The Indian Express. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
  49. ^ ICF Team (August 17, 2018). "Suspension on Writer Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar Revoked". Indian Cultural Forum. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
  50. ^ Paromita Chakrabarti (September 2, 2018). "Playing with Fire: Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar on his first children's book". The Indian Express. Retrieved September 2, 2018.

External links[]

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