Shashi Deshpande

Born in 1938, Shashi Deshpande is an award-winning Indian novelist from Dharwad, Karnataka. She also happens to be the second daughter of the famous Kannada dramatist and writer, Sriranga. Although born in Karnataka, she educated in Mumbai. She pursued journalism at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and worked for a short period for the magazine ‘Onlooker.’ She also has degrees in Economics and Law. She is called a feminist writer since her novels usually have women as the protagonists. She disliked the title given to her, and expressed her discomfort in a seminar in Dharwad where she said her works are just novels, whereas she is a feminist. Shashi Deshande’s appeal is laid in feminist themes. She molded her plot into pictures of feminist point of view. She feels that her novels are open examinations of people’s experiences.

Her style of writing is somber; she is not after silly gimmicks. She was sad by the murder of M. M. Kalburgi, a Kannada writer who was also a Sahitya Akademi award recipient. As it’s consequence, she submitted her resignation letter from Sahitya Akademi’s General Council on October 9, 2015, because of the Akademi’s failed participation in the protest of the scholar who was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Dharwad. She strongly voiced her opinion by saying that the premier literary organization in the country should stand up against the act of violence against a scholar like M.M Kalburgi. She felt that if the Akademi remained silent, a few meetings once every while would not do justice for the murder of a member of the community. She is also a member of the prestigious Indian Writer’s Forum.

She won the Sahitya Akademi award for her book ‘That Long Silence’ in 1990 and the Padma Shri award in 2009. She has written various other books like ‘The Dark Hold No Terrors,’ ‘If I Die Today,’ ‘Come Up and Be Dead,’ ‘Roots and Shadows,’ ‘In the Country of Deceit,’ ‘Small Remedies.’ Her novel ‘Shadow Play’ was qualified for The Hindu Literary Prize in 2014. She has authored four children’s books namely ‘A Summer Adventure,’ ‘The Hidden Treasure,’ ‘The Only Witness,’ ‘The Narayanpur Incident,’ a bunch of short stories and several perceptive essays. Her first book was ‘The Legacy’ which is a collection of short stories.