Interview with Maheswata Devi

Abstract

Mahasweta Devi is one of India’s foremost writers. She was born in 1926 in in East Bengal (currently Bangladesh); as a teenager, she and her family moved to West Bengal. Mahasweta Devi was born into a literary family, and was influenced by her early association with a group that brought social and political theater to rural villages in Bengal in the 1930's and 1940's. She completed a master's degree in English literature from Calcutta University, and began working as a teacher and journalist. Her first book, Jhansir Rani (The Queen of Jhansi), was published in 1956. She has published twenty collections of short stories and nearly 100 novels, mainly in her native language of Bengali. Her trenchant, powerful fiction has won her recognition in the form of the Sahitya Akademi (1979), Jnanpith (1996) and Ramon Magasaysay (1996) awards, amongst several other literary honours. She was also awarded the Padmasree in 1986, for her activist work among the dispossessed tribal communities. In 1980 she started editing a Bengali quarterly, Bortika, which she turned into a forum where marginalized people who had no voice elsewhere, could write about their lives and problems.