Kiran Nagarkar (2 April 1942 – 5 September 2019) was an Indian novelist, playwright and screenwriter. A noted drama and film critic, he was one of the most significant writers of post-colonial India.[1]
Amongst his notable works are Saat Sakkam Trechalis (tr. Seven Sixes Are Forty Three) (1974), Ravan and Eddie (1994), and Cuckold (1997) for which he was awarded the 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award in English by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters.[1][2][3] His novels written in English have been translated into German. In 2012, he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.[4]
From June to November 2011 he was 'writer in residence' at the Literaturhaus Zurich and the PWG Foundation in Zurich.[10]
He was married to Tulsi Vatsal, sister of industrialist Anand Mehta.[9][11] Nagarkar was a life-long critic of the establishment and stood by his political views throughout his literary career.[12]
He was admitted to hospital on 2 September 2019, after suffering a brain haemorrhage at a friend's place during celebrations for the Ganesh Chaturthi festival.[13] He remained in coma for two days and died on 5 September 2019.[9]
Novels
Nagarkar is notable among Indian writers for having written acclaimed novels in more than one language. His first novel, Saat Sakkam Trechalis published in Marathi in 1974, was translated into English by Shubha Slee in 1980 and published in 1995 as Seven Sixes Are Forty Three.[14] It is considered a landmark work of Marathi literature.[15] His novel Ravan and Eddie, begun in Marathi but completed in English, was not published until 1994.[16] Since Ravan and Eddie, all Nagarkar's novels have been written in English and also translated into German.[13]
His third novel, Cuckold, based upon the mystic Meerabai's husband, Bhoj Raj, was published in 1997 and won the 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award. It took him nine years to write his next, God's Little Soldier, a tale of a liberal Muslim boy's tryst with religious orthodoxy, which was published in 2006, to mixed reviews.[17][18][19]
In 2012, he published The Extras, a sequel to Ravan and Eddie that traces the adult lives of Ravan and Eddie in Bollywood. The third and last book in the series, Rest in Peace, was written in 2015.[9]
His 2017 novel, Jasoda, is the story of a young women and mother, trying to raise her children in the arid lands of Kantagiri. Jasoda shows every lamentable tradition in the hinterlands in stark clarity. It is a testimony, according to the author, to the millions of women in the parched and scorched regions of India and find themselves between a rock and a husband.[20]
His 2019 novel, The Arsonist, is a re-imagining of the life of Kabir, the 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint. It also critiqued the rise of Hindu majoritarianism in India.[12]
Plays and screenplays
In 1978, Nagarkar wrote the play Bedtime Story, based partly on the Mahābhārata. Its performance was extra-legally banned for 17 years by Hindu nationalist[14]fundamentalist parties,[21] including the Shiv Sena,[22][23][24][25] a far-right political party;[26]Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Hindu Mahasabha.[27] He warned about censorship faced by India in his introduction to the play: "Legal censorship in India can often be gauche, club-footed and hyper-protective of anything and everything but the freedoms of speech and expression. Extra-legal censorship in the country, however, is fearless and effective. It successfully prevented Bedtime Story from being performed for seventeen years."[14] In a 2018 interview, Nagarkar did not appear to be concerned about censorship in the country. He recalled past incidents when radical groups in Mumbai had threatened to prevent his play from staging. Nagarkar stated, "these things happen from time to time, and only then can we be assured that art is still living."[28]
Nagarkar's theatre work also includes Kabirache Kay Karayche and Stranger Amongst Us, and his screenplay work includes The Broken Circle, The Widow and Her Friends, and The Elephant on the Mouse, a film for children.[28][29] He played the role of Brother Bono as a cameo appearance in Dev Benegal's Movie Split Wide Open.[30]
^. -Sahitya Akademi Official website. Archived from the original on 11 June 2010. Retrieved 30 April 2022.
^. The Hindu. 5 March 2006. Archived from the original on 4 November 2008. Retrieved 24 November 2008.
^ abStaff writer (7 November 2012). . ANI. Archived from the original on 9 November 2012. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
^"Kiran Nagarkar: God's little soldier". rediff.com. 2 May 2006. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^ ab"Sahitya Akademi awardee novelist Kiran Nagarkar dead". Mint. 5 September 2019. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^ abBhagat, Shalini Venugopal (11 September 2019). "Kiran Nagarkar, Novelist Who Chronicled Mumbai Life, Dies at 77". The New York Times. pp. 1–21. Retrieved 19 September 2019.
^"Unapologetically Nagarkar". Harmony Magazine. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^ abcdefghijVij, Gauri (6 September 2019). "Sahitya Akademi Award-winning writer Kiran Nagarkar dies at 77". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^Angela Schader (20 June 2011). "Der indische Romancier Kiran Nagarkar ist Zürichs neuer "writer in residence"". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 20 June 2011.
^"Humour and honours". Ahmedabad Mirror. 12 November 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^ abKohli, Diya (22 June 2019). "'I'm not trying to deny it has affected me': Kiran Nagarkar". Mint. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
^ abc"Kiran Nagarkar - The born storyteller no more". mid-day. 6 September 2019. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
^ abcTripathi, Salil (28 February 2015). "When Kiran Nagarkar said the unsayable". www.livemint.com. HT Media. livemint. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^"Unapologetically Nagarkar, Harmony Magazine". Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^"The terrorist is inside us". The Tribune. 15 April 2006. from the original on 5 June 2011. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^"The Soldier Reads". Outlook. 24 April 2006. from the original on 29 October 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^. The Hindu. 13 April 2006. Archived from the original on 6 June 2011. Retrieved 13 March 2010.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Shashi Tharoor (8 May 2006). "Review:A Fancy Bird Too Heavy To Fly". Outlook. from the original on 11 August 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
^Anantharaman, Latha (23 December 2017). "She who shrugs and carries on: Jasoda by Kiran Nagarkar reviewed by Latha Anantharaman". The Hindu. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
^"Award-winning author Kiran Nagarkar dies". Mumbai Mirror. No. 2. The Times Group. Mumbai Mirror. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^Tejuja, Vivek (20 March 2015). "Kiran Nagarkar's 'Bedtime Story and Black Tulip' a terrific read". www.news18.com. Network18 Group. News18. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^Dutta, Amrita (6 September 2019). "The bilingual bard of Bombay and Mumbai, Kiran Nagarkar gave Indian writing in English an electric charge". The Indian Express. Indian Express Group. The Indian Express. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^Joshi, Poorva (17 March 2016). "Mumbai is indifferent to the rest of the country: author Kiran Nagarkar". hindustantimes.com. No. 2. HT Media. Hindustan Times. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^Bhattacharya, Chandrima S. (29 October 2015). "Duty to protest: Author". www.telegraphindia.com. No. 1. Calcutta, West Bengal, India: ABP Group. The Telegraph. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^Preston, Alex (10 February 2013). "The sharp end of Indian politics". British Broadcasting Corporation News. No. 1. BBC. BBC News. from the original on 20 November 2016. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^Purandare, Vaibhav (2012). Sundarji, Padma Rao; Dasgupta, Shrabani; Mathpal, Sanjeev; Sahadevan, Shaji (eds.). Bal Thackeray and the rise of Shiv Sena. Mumbai, Maharashtra: Roli Books Private Limited. p. 288. ISBN9788174369918. Retrieved 6 September 2019. In 1977-78, the [Shiv Sena] party, along with the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, extra-legally banned Bedtime Story, a play written by Kiran Nagarkar.
^ abcdeMarch 7, Vinayak Mohan On (7 March 2018). "A Conversation With Kiran Nagarkar On Art, Language & Freedom Of Expression". Silverscreen.in. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^ abcdeटीम, द वायर मराठी (5 September 2019). "कादंबरीकार किरण नगरकर यांचे निधन". द वायर मराठी. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^"The Sunday Tribune - Spectrum - Wide Angle". tribuneindia.com. 2 April 2000. Retrieved 7 September 2019.
^Staff writer (17 February 2013). "The Hindu Literary Prize goes to Jerry Pinto". The Hindu. from the original on 20 February 2013. Retrieved 18 February 2013.
^Bose, Ishani (20 October 2013). "The critics gave me absolutely no support: Writer of Bed Time Story Kiran Nagarkar". DNA India. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
^Tripathi, Salil (28 February 2015). "When Kiran Nagarkar said the unsayable". livemint.com. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
References
Yasmeen Lukhmani, ed. The Shifting Worlds of Kiran Nagarkar's Fiction, Indialog Publications, New Delhi, 2004 ISBN81-87981-59-8
Sanga, Jaina C. (2003). South Asian novelists in English: an A-to-Z guide. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN0-313-31885-9.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kiran Nagarkar.
kiran, nagarkar, april, 1942, september, 2019, indian, novelist, playwright, screenwriter, noted, drama, film, critic, most, significant, writers, post, colonial, india, 2013, bookfair, leipzig, germanyborn, 1942, april, 1942bombay, bombay, presidency, british. Kiran Nagarkar 2 April 1942 5 September 2019 was an Indian novelist playwright and screenwriter A noted drama and film critic he was one of the most significant writers of post colonial India 1 Kiran Nagarkar2013 at the bookfair of Leipzig GermanyBorn 1942 04 02 2 April 1942Bombay Bombay Presidency British India now Mumbai Maharashtra India Died5 September 2019 aged 77 Mumbai Maharashtra IndiaOccupationNovelistdramatistscreenwriterLiterary movementIndianNotable awardsSahitya Akademi Award Order of Merit of GermanySpouseTulsi VatsalWebsitekirannagarkar wbr comAmongst his notable works are Saat Sakkam Trechalis tr Seven Sixes Are Forty Three 1974 Ravan and Eddie 1994 and Cuckold 1997 for which he was awarded the 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award in English by the Sahitya Akademi India s National Academy of Letters 1 2 3 His novels written in English have been translated into German In 2012 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany 4 Contents 1 Personal life 2 Novels 3 Plays and screenplays 4 Awards and honours 5 Works 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 External linksPersonal life EditNagarkar was born on 2 April 1942 in Bombay now Mumbai in a middle class Maharashtrian family the younger of two sons to Sulochana and Kamalkant Nagarkar 5 6 7 His grandfather B B Nagarkar was a Brahmo and had attended the 1893 Parliament of the World s Religions in Chicago 8 He studied at Fergusson College in Pune and the S I E S College in Mumbai 9 6 He graduated with a bachelor s degree in 1964 and a master s degree in English literature in 1967 After that he worked as an advertising copywriter for 15 years 7 From June to November 2011 he was writer in residence at the Literaturhaus Zurich and the PWG Foundation in Zurich 10 He was married to Tulsi Vatsal sister of industrialist Anand Mehta 9 11 Nagarkar was a life long critic of the establishment and stood by his political views throughout his literary career 12 He was admitted to hospital on 2 September 2019 after suffering a brain haemorrhage at a friend s place during celebrations for the Ganesh Chaturthi festival 13 He remained in coma for two days and died on 5 September 2019 9 Novels EditNagarkar is notable among Indian writers for having written acclaimed novels in more than one language His first novel Saat Sakkam Trechalis published in Marathi in 1974 was translated into English by Shubha Slee in 1980 and published in 1995 as Seven Sixes Are Forty Three 14 It is considered a landmark work of Marathi literature 15 His novel Ravan and Eddie begun in Marathi but completed in English was not published until 1994 16 Since Ravan and Eddie all Nagarkar s novels have been written in English and also translated into German 13 His third novel Cuckold based upon the mystic Meerabai s husband Bhoj Raj was published in 1997 and won the 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award It took him nine years to write his next God s Little Soldier a tale of a liberal Muslim boy s tryst with religious orthodoxy which was published in 2006 to mixed reviews 17 18 19 In 2012 he published The Extras a sequel to Ravan and Eddie that traces the adult lives of Ravan and Eddie in Bollywood The third and last book in the series Rest in Peace was written in 2015 9 His 2017 novel Jasoda is the story of a young women and mother trying to raise her children in the arid lands of Kantagiri Jasoda shows every lamentable tradition in the hinterlands in stark clarity It is a testimony according to the author to the millions of women in the parched and scorched regions of India and find themselves between a rock and a husband 20 His 2019 novel The Arsonist is a re imagining of the life of Kabir the 15th century Indian mystic poet and saint It also critiqued the rise of Hindu majoritarianism in India 12 Plays and screenplays EditIn 1978 Nagarkar wrote the play Bedtime Story based partly on the Mahabharata Its performance was extra legally banned for 17 years by Hindu nationalist 14 fundamentalist parties 21 including the Shiv Sena 22 23 24 25 a far right political party 26 Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh RSS and Hindu Mahasabha 27 He warned about censorship faced by India in his introduction to the play Legal censorship in India can often be gauche club footed and hyper protective of anything and everything but the freedoms of speech and expression Extra legal censorship in the country however is fearless and effective It successfully prevented Bedtime Story from being performed for seventeen years 14 In a 2018 interview Nagarkar did not appear to be concerned about censorship in the country He recalled past incidents when radical groups in Mumbai had threatened to prevent his play from staging Nagarkar stated these things happen from time to time and only then can we be assured that art is still living 28 Nagarkar s theatre work also includes Kabirache Kay Karayche and Stranger Amongst Us and his screenplay work includes The Broken Circle The Widow and Her Friends and The Elephant on the Mouse a film for children 28 29 He played the role of Brother Bono as a cameo appearance in Dev Benegal s Movie Split Wide Open 30 Awards and honours Edit Kiran Nagarkar at the Chandigarh Literature Festival in 2010 Kiran Nagarkar was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and Sahitya Akademi Award among others He also received the Rockefeller grant and a scholarship from the city of Munich 13 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award winner Cuckold 1 2012 Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany It is described as the highest tribute Germany can pay to individuals 4 2013 The Hindu Literary Prize shortlist The Extras 31 Works EditNovels 1974 Seven Sixes are Forty Three tr of Saat Sakkam Trechalis Translated by Shubha Slee Pub Heinemann 1995 ISBN 0 435 95088 6 9 1994 Ravan and Eddie 9 1997 Cuckold 9 2006 God s Little Soldier 29 2012 The Extras 9 2015 Rest in Peace 9 2017 Jasoda A Novel 29 2019 The Arsonist 9 Kiran Nagarkar at Chandigarh Literature Festival in 2016 Plays and screenplays 1978 Bedtime Story 29 Kabirache Kay Karayche 29 Stranger Amongst Us 32 The Broken Circle 28 The Widow and Her Friends 28 The Elephant on the Mouse 28 Black Tulip 33 See also EditList of Indian writers Shyam Benegal Tapan Kumar Pradhan Dia MirzaNotes Edit a b c Sanga p 177 Sahitya Akademi Awards 1955 2007 English Sahitya Akademi Official website Archived from the original on 11 June 2010 Retrieved 30 April 2022 In Conversation The artful storyteller The Hindu 5 March 2006 Archived from the original on 4 November 2008 Retrieved 24 November 2008 a b Staff writer 7 November 2012 Germany confers Cross of Order of Merit to Babasaheb Kalyani Kiran Nagarkar ANI Archived from the original on 9 November 2012 Retrieved 18 February 2013 Kiran Nagarkar God s little soldier rediff com 2 May 2006 Retrieved 6 September 2019 a b Sahitya Akademi awardee novelist Kiran Nagarkar dead Mint 5 September 2019 Retrieved 6 September 2019 a b Bhagat Shalini Venugopal 11 September 2019 Kiran Nagarkar Novelist Who Chronicled Mumbai Life Dies at 77 The New York Times pp 1 21 Retrieved 19 September 2019 Unapologetically Nagarkar Harmony Magazine Retrieved 6 September 2019 a b c d e f g h i j Vij Gauri 6 September 2019 Sahitya Akademi Award winning writer Kiran Nagarkar dies at 77 The Hindu ISSN 0971 751X Retrieved 6 September 2019 Angela Schader 20 June 2011 Der indische Romancier Kiran Nagarkar ist Zurichs neuer writer in residence Neue Zurcher Zeitung in German Retrieved 20 June 2011 Humour and honours Ahmedabad Mirror 12 November 2012 Retrieved 6 September 2019 a b Kohli Diya 22 June 2019 I m not trying to deny it has affected me Kiran Nagarkar Mint Retrieved 7 September 2019 a b c Kiran Nagarkar The born storyteller no more mid day 6 September 2019 Retrieved 7 September 2019 a b c Tripathi Salil 28 February 2015 When Kiran Nagarkar said the unsayable www livemint com HT Media livemint Retrieved 6 September 2019 Unapologetically Nagarkar Harmony Magazine Retrieved 6 September 2019 The terrorist is inside us The Tribune 15 April 2006 Archived from the original on 5 June 2011 Retrieved 13 March 2010 The Soldier Reads Outlook 24 April 2006 Archived from the original on 29 October 2010 Retrieved 13 March 2010 LITERATURE The light and the tunnel The Hindu 13 April 2006 Archived from the original on 6 June 2011 Retrieved 13 March 2010 a href Template Cite news html title Template Cite news cite news a CS1 maint unfit URL link Shashi Tharoor 8 May 2006 Review A Fancy Bird Too Heavy To Fly Outlook Archived from the original on 11 August 2010 Retrieved 13 March 2010 Anantharaman Latha 23 December 2017 She who shrugs and carries on Jasoda by Kiran Nagarkar reviewed by Latha Anantharaman The Hindu Retrieved 2 March 2021 Award winning author Kiran Nagarkar dies Mumbai Mirror No 2 The Times Group Mumbai Mirror Retrieved 6 September 2019 Tejuja Vivek 20 March 2015 Kiran Nagarkar s Bedtime Story and Black Tulip a terrific read www news18 com Network18 Group News18 Retrieved 6 September 2019 Dutta Amrita 6 September 2019 The bilingual bard of Bombay and Mumbai Kiran Nagarkar gave Indian writing in English an electric charge The Indian Express Indian Express Group The Indian Express Retrieved 6 September 2019 Joshi Poorva 17 March 2016 Mumbai is indifferent to the rest of the country author Kiran Nagarkar hindustantimes com No 2 HT Media Hindustan Times Retrieved 6 September 2019 Bhattacharya Chandrima S 29 October 2015 Duty to protest Author www telegraphindia com No 1 Calcutta West Bengal India ABP Group The Telegraph Retrieved 6 September 2019 Preston Alex 10 February 2013 The sharp end of Indian politics British Broadcasting Corporation News No 1 BBC BBC News Archived from the original on 20 November 2016 Retrieved 6 September 2019 Purandare Vaibhav 2012 Sundarji Padma Rao Dasgupta Shrabani Mathpal Sanjeev Sahadevan Shaji eds Bal Thackeray and the rise of Shiv Sena Mumbai Maharashtra Roli Books Private Limited p 288 ISBN 9788174369918 Retrieved 6 September 2019 In 1977 78 the Shiv Sena party along with the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha extra legally banned Bedtime Story a play written by Kiran Nagarkar a b c d e March 7 Vinayak Mohan On 7 March 2018 A Conversation With Kiran Nagarkar On Art Language amp Freedom Of Expression Silverscreen in Retrieved 6 September 2019 a b c d e ट म द व यर मर ठ 5 September 2019 क द बर क र क रण नगरकर य च न धन द व यर मर ठ Retrieved 6 September 2019 The Sunday Tribune Spectrum Wide Angle tribuneindia com 2 April 2000 Retrieved 7 September 2019 Staff writer 17 February 2013 The Hindu Literary Prize goes to Jerry Pinto The Hindu Archived from the original on 20 February 2013 Retrieved 18 February 2013 Bose Ishani 20 October 2013 The critics gave me absolutely no support Writer of Bed Time Story Kiran Nagarkar DNA India Retrieved 6 September 2019 Tripathi Salil 28 February 2015 When Kiran Nagarkar said the unsayable livemint com Retrieved 6 September 2019 References EditYasmeen Lukhmani ed The Shifting Worlds of Kiran Nagarkar s Fiction Indialog Publications New Delhi 2004 ISBN 81 87981 59 8 Sanga Jaina C 2003 South Asian novelists in English an A to Z guide Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN 0 313 31885 9 Kiran Nagarkar on Extras sexual repression amp humourless IndiansExternal links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kiran Nagarkar Kiran Nagarkar The Unofficial Website Kiran Nagarkar on Another Subcontinent On Sanity Hazards of Being an Indian Writer at Tehelka On bombings in MumbaiInterviewsKiran Nagarkar Interview on Jaberwock Hindu Interview by Kalpana Sharma Hindu Interview by Sangita Pishorty Usurped Rediff Interview Kiran Nagarkar Interview on Another Subcontinent Kiran Nagarkar God s Little Soldier by Lindsay Pereira Arts 21 Between Berlin and Bombay a The Indian Writer Kiran Nagarkar Portals Biography India Literature Theatre Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Kiran Nagarkar amp oldid 1139537611, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
