Rajendra Yadav

Rajendra Yadav (1929–2013) was a leading Hindi writer, known as much for his novels and short stories as for his editorship of the Hindi literary magazine, Hans. He was born in Agra, and moved to Calcutta after his studies, where he stayed for almost a decade. This is where he met Mannu Bhandari, herself a writer, and they married in 1959. In 1964, the couple moved to Delhi. His first novel was Sara Akash (1951), which was made into a film by Basu Chatterjee in 1969. Sara Akash was followed by Ukhde Hue Log, Kulta, Shah Aur Maat, Andekhe Anjaan Pal and Mantravidh. He also co-authored a novel with Mannu Bhandari, Ek Inch Muskaan. He wrote over a hundred short stories and was part of the ‘trikon’ who started the influential Nayi Kahani movement in the 1950s (the other two were Mohan Rakesh and Kamleshwar). In 1986 he revived Hans, the magazine founded by Munshi Premchand in 1936. He edited it till his death in 2013, making it the premier Hindi literary magazine of its time.