Geetanjali Shree
Geetanjali Shree (actually Geetanjali Pandey ; born June 12, 1957 in Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh , India ) is an Indian writer, she lives and works in New Delhi .
Life
Geetanjali Shree grew up as the daughter of an official of the Indian Administrative Service at its changing offices in northern India. With Hindi as her mother tongue and an English-language school and university education, she is at home in both languages. She studied modern Indian history and began an academic career as a historian and social scientist. She has published four academic papers in English on the role of intellectuals and writers in the context of the Indian independence movement of the 20th century. These studies appeared under their real name Geetanjali Pandey.
Increasingly, her interest turned to narrative and dramatic literature and she began a second career as a writer. The author's name Geetanjali Shree, which she uses for her literary texts written in Hindi, is a combination of her own first name and her mother's first name. Since 1991 she has published four novels and four volumes of short stories. She has been working with the Vivadi Theater in Delhi since 1993, for which she has so far written four stage adaptations of texts by other authors.
Outside of the Hindi-speaking literary scene in India, she was best known for her English translation of her debut novel "Mai" (1993), published in 2000, in which she portrayed three generations of a family and shed light on changing social role models. At the center of the novel is Mai, the mother of the first-person narrator, a woman who only appears weak and oppressed at first glance. Translations of “May” into other languages followed. A German edition of this novel and a selection of stories were published by Draupadi Verlag, Heidelberg.
Literary works (selection)
- 1991 Anugoonj (short stories)
- 1993 May (novel); Umrao (stage adaptation of the novel "Umrao Jan Ada" by Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa )
- 1998 Hamara Shahar us Baras (novel)
- 1999 Vairagya (short stories)
- 2001 Tirohit (novel)
- 2006 Khali Jagah (novel)
- 2008 March, Ma aur Sakura (short stories)
- 2010 Pratinidhi Kahaniyan (selected stories)
In German translation
- 1990 sacrificial sheets. Short story. Translated by Hannelore Lötzke, in: Explorations. 23 stories from India, Volk und Welt publishing house, Berlin
- 2006 Finis. Short story. Translated by Rainer Kimmig, in: Delhi's insomnia and other realities. Word journeys through a continent, Bremerhaven 2006 (= "die horen", issue 223)
- 2010 May. Novel. Translated by Reinhold Schein , Draupadi Verlag, Heidelberg
- 2010 white hibiscus. Stories. Translated by Anna Petersdorf, Draupadi Verlag, Heidelberg
- 2011 names. Short story. Translated by Friederike Grenner; In these days. Short story. Translated by Jürgen Neuss. Both in: chili, chai, chapati. Stories from India, Kitab Verlag, Klagenfurt - Vienna
- 2013 Our city that year. Novel. Translated by André Penz, Draupadi Verlag, Heidelberg
- 2018 In the empty room. Novel. Translated by Georg Lechner and Nivedita Menon, Lotos Werkstatt, Berlin
Scientific work
- Premchand on Industrialism: A Study in Attitudinal Ambivalence, Indian Economic & Social History Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, 201-212 (1982)
- Premchand and the Peasantry: Constrained Radicalism, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 18, No. 26 (Jun. 25, 1983), pp. 1149-1155 1983
- The North Indian Intelligentsia and the Hindu-Muslim Question, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 19, No. 38 (Sep. 22, 1984), pp. 1664-1670 1989
- Between Two Worlds: An Intellectual Biography of Premchand, New Delhi: Manohar, 1989
Web links
- Literature by and about Gītāñjali Śrī in the catalog of the German National Library
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Shree, Geetanjali |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pandey, Geetanjali |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Indian writer and historian |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 12, 1957 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh , India |