"My Language: Why and How Hindi?" by Geetanjali Shree

Geetanjali Shree talks about “My Language: Why and How Hindi?” as part of the Azim Premji University Colloquium Series. April 27, 2018 About the Speaker Geetanjali Shree is a distinguished Hindi novelist. She has written four novels - Mai, Tirohit, Hamara Sheher Us Baras and Khali Jagah - and two collections of short stories. Three of these novels have appeared in English translation as The Roof Beneath Her Feet (Translator, Rahul Soni, HarperCollins, 2013), That Empty Space (Translator, Nivedita Menon, HarperCollins, 2011) and Mai: Silently Mother (Translator, Nita Kumar, Kali for Women, 2000). Her stories have also been translated into Gujarati, German, Serbian and Japanese. Her novel Khali Jagah has been translated into Urdu in Pakistan and is being translated into English now. She has published in English Between Two Worlds: An Intellectual Biography of Premchand. She is also involved with theatre in Delhi, mostly with the well-known group Vivadi, devising adventurous scripts, such as on Umrao Jan Ada, the courtesan from Lucknow and on Jaishankar Sundari, the male actor from Gujarat who played the female lead and was hugely popular. The English translation of Mai was shortlisted for the Hutch-Crossword Translation Award in 2000. She has received the Indu Sharma Katha Sammaan, Hindi Akademi Sahityakar Sammaan and Dwijdev Sammaan for her contribution to Hindi literature.