Biography
Mahasweta
Devi was born in 1926 in the city of Dacca in East Bengal (modern day Bangladesh).
As an adolescent, she and her family moved to West Bengal in India. Born
into a literary family, Mahasweta Devi was also influenced by her early
association with Gananatya, a group who attempted to bring social and political
theater to rural villages in Bengal in the 1930's and 1940's. After finishing
a master's degree in English literature from Calcutta University, Devi
began working as a teacher and journalist. Her first book, Jhansir Rani
(The Queen of Jhansi), was published in 1956. This work also marked
the beginning of a prolific literary career. In the last forty years, Devi
has published twenty collections of short stories and close to a hundred
novels, primarily in her native language of Bengali. She has also been
a regular contributor to several literary magazines such as Bortika,
a journal dedicated to the cause of oppressed communities within India.
In 1984, she retired from her job as an English lecturer at a Calcutta
university to concentrate on her writing. In the last decade, Devi has
been the recipient of several literary prizes. She was awarded the Jnanpath,
India's highest literary award in 1995. In the following year, she was
one of the recipients of the Magsaysay award, considered to be the
Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She currently resides and works in
Calcutta, India.
Major Works and Themes
Mahasweta
Devi's first work, Jhansir Rani, was a fictional reconstruction
of Laxmibal, the Picture of woman ruler who died fighting the British
Author army in the mid-nineteenth century. Several of her other early works
such as Amrita Sanchay (1964) and Andhanmalik (1967) are
also set during the British colonial period. The Naxalite movement
of the late 1960's and early 1970's were also an important influence
in her work. Devi, in a 1983 interview, points to this movement as the
first major event that she felt "an urge and an obligation to document"
(Bandyopandhyay viii). This leftist militant movement, which started in
the Naxalbari region of West Bengal, began as a rural revolt of landless
workers and tribal people against landlords and moneylenders. In urban
centers, this movement attracted participation from student groups. Devi's
Hajar
Churashir Ma (Mother of 1084) is the story of a upper middle
class woman whose world is forever changed when her son is killed for his
Naxalite beliefs. This book has recently been made into a Hindi-language
movie called Hazaar Chaurasi ki Ma by director Govind Nihalani .
Another important
theme in the works of Mahasweta Devi involves the position of tribal communities
within India. She is a long-time champion for the political, social and
economic advancement of these communities, whom she characterizes as "suffering
spectators of the India that is traveling towards the twenty first century"
(Imaginary Maps, xi). These concerns can be seen in works such as
Aranyer
Adhikar (Rights of the Forest) and anthologies such as her 1979
NairhiteMegh
(Clouds in the Southwestern Sky).
Aranyer Adhikar, which
was published in 1977, is based on the life of Birsa Munda, a tribal freedom
fighter. She has also donated the prize money from both the Jnanpath and
Magsaysay awards to tribal communities and continues to use her work to
further the position of these groups in India.
This activism is central to Devi's understanding of the role of a writer
in society: "I think a creative writer should have a social conscience.
I have a duty towards society. Yet I don't really why I do these things.
The sense of duty is an obsession. I must remain accountable to myself."
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak , who has translated two collections of Devi's stories including those in Imaginary Maps into English, suggests that this interplay of activism and literary writing in Devi's fiction can be of substantial interest to current academic discourse and practices. Spivak insists that Devi's work suggests a model in which activism and writing can reflect upon each other, providing a necessary vision of inter-nationality, and the possibility of constructing a new kind of responsibility for the cultural worker (Imaginary Maps, xxvi).
In response to the question, "What would you like to do for the rest of your life?" in a 1998 interview, Devi replied: "Fight for the tribals, downtrodden, underprivileged and write creatively if and when I find the time" (Guha). Devi is currently an editorial advisor for Budhan: The Denotified and Nomadic Tribes Rights Action Group Newletter. The newsletter is named after Budhan Sabar who was brutally killed in March 1998.
Related Sites
Page on
Mahasweta Devi at Georgetown
Pictures
of Mahasweta Devi at exhibitions of Kheria Sabar tribe's arts and crafts
Interview with
Mahasweta Devi
Film
about Mahasweta Devi
Works Citied
Bardhan, Kalpana. "Introduction". Of Women, Outcastes, Peasants, and Rebels. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990. 1-50.
Bandypadhyay, Samik. "Introduction." Five Plays. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1986. v-xxx.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. "The author in conversation." Imaginary Maps. New York: Routledge Books,1995. ix-xxiii.
Author: Shibani Baksi, Spring
1998.
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