Rajendra Yadav (Ruth Vanita Tr.)

Rajendra Yadav (1929-2013) was among the most important and famous modern Hindi authors and intellectuals. Raised and educated in Agra, he wrote his first and greatest novel, Sara Akash, in 1951 (first published as Pret Bolte Hain). Never out of print since, it has sold over 500,000 copies, and was made into a film directed by Basu Chatterjee in 1969. Along with Kamleshwar and Mohan Rakesh, Yadav started the Nayi Kahani movement which transformed the Hindi literary scene in the 1950s and '60s. Author of seven novels and twelve short story collections, Yadav reinvented himself as an editor, political commentator and translator. In 1986, he re-launched Premchand's magazine Hans, and, with assistance from associate editor Archana Varma, turned it for over a decade into Hindi's most prominent literary journal. Yadav ran his own publishing house Akshar Prakashan, where his office became a centre for literary debate, and he developed Hans into a controversial forum for women's and minority voices. He is survived by his wife, well-known Hindi fiction writer Mannu Bhandari, and their daughter Rachna.

Ruth Vanita, raised and educated in Delhi, taught at Delhi University for twenty years and now teaches at the University of Montana. Founding co-editor of Manushi, India's first nationwide feminist magazine, she is the author of several books, most recently Gender, Sex and the City: Urdu Rekhti Poetry 1780-1870, and co-editor of Same-Sex Love in India: A Literary History. She has translated many works of fiction and poetry from Hindi to English, most recently Alone Together: Selected Stories of Mannu Bhandari, Rajee Seth and Archana Varma.