Krishna Sobti (18 February 1925 – 25 January 2019) was an Indian Hindi-language fiction writer and essayist. She won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1980 for her novel Zindaginama and in 1996, was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest award of the Akademi. In 2017, she received the Jnanpith Award for her contribution to Indian literature.
Sobti is best known for her 1966 novel Mitro Marajani, an unapologetic portrayal of a married woman's sexuality. She was also the recipient of the first Katha Chudamani Award, in 1999, for Lifetime Literary Achievement, apart from winning the Shiromani Award in 1981, Hindi Academy Award in 1982, Shalaka Award of the Hindi Academy Delhi and in 2008, her novel Samay Sargam was selected for Vyas Samman, instituted by the K. K. Birla Foundation.
Considered the grande dame of Hindi literature, Krishna Sobti was born in Gujrat, Punjab, now in Pakistan; she also wrote under the name Hashmat and has published Hum Hashmat, a compilation of pen portraits of writers and friends. Her other novels are Daar Se Bichchuri, Surajmukhi Andhere Ke, Yaaron Ke Yaar, Zindaginama. Some of her well-known short stories are Nafisa, Sikka Badal gaya, Badalom ke ghere. A selection of her major works are published in Sobti Eka Sohabata. A number of her works are now available in English and Urdu.
In 2005, Dil-o-Danish, translated into The Heart Has Its Reasons in English by Reema Anand and Meenakshi Swami of Katha Books, won the Crossword Award in the Indian Language Fiction Translation category. Her publications have been translated to multiple Indian and foreign languages such as Swedish, Russian and English.
Biography
Sobti was born on 18 February 1925 in Gujrat city of the Punjab province of British India, (Gujrat, became a part of Pakistan after partition). She was educated in Delhi and Shimla. She attended school along with her three siblings, and her family worked for the colonial British government. She initially began her higher education at Fatehchand College in Lahore, but returned to India when the Partition of India took place. Immediately after partition, she worked for two years as a governess to Maharaja Tej Singh (b.1943), the child-Maharaja of Sirohi in Rajasthan, India. In her old age, when she was past her 70th birthday, she married Dogri writer Shivnath who, by a remarkable coincidence, was born on the same day of the same year as her. The couple settled into his flat in Mayur Vihar near Patparganj in East Delhi. Shivnath died a few years later, and Krishna continued to reside alone in the same apartment.
She died on 25 January 2019, in Delhi after a long illness.
Writing
Sobti's use of idiomatic Punjabi and Urdu while writing in Hindi has expanded over time to include Rajasthani as well. The intermingling of Urdu, Punjabi and Hindi cultures, influenced the language used in her works. She was known for using new writing styles. The characters in her stories were 'bold', 'daring' and ready to accept challenges. Her ability to adapt dialect and language specifically to the region she is writing about has been praised by critics for lending authenticity to her characters. It has also been cited as a reason for the difficulty in translating her works to other languages. Although Sobti's works deal closely with issues of female identity and sexuality, she has resisted being labelled as a 'woman writer' and has spoken of the importance of occupying both, masculine and feminine viewpoints, as a writer.
Her writing style and idiom, as also her choice of subjects, has attracted some amount of criticism. It has been said that she uses too much profanity in her writings, often gratuitously, and that her style of writing is "unliterary." She has also been accused of being obsessed with sex, the redeeming feature being that descriptions of sex in her works are always from the perspective of a woman character, and no work of fiction ever produced by her has failed to feature at least one intensely sexualised woman character. A selection of her major works are published in Sobti Eka Sohabata. Her publications have been translated to multiple Indian and foreign languages such as Swedish, Russian and English.
Fiction
Sobti initially established herself as a writer of short stories, with her stories Lama (about a Tibetan Buddhist priest), and Nafisa being published in 1944. In the same year, she also published her famous story about the Partition of India, called Sikka Badal Gaya, which she sent to Sachchidananda Vatsyayan, a fellow writer and the editor of the journal, Prateek, who accepted it for publication without any changes. Sobti has cited this incident as confirming her choice to write professionally.