Writer, Poet, Dramatist
Kalidasa, one of the chief figures in classic Sanskrit literature was also a dramatist and poet. He was one of the Navaratna (9 gems or the most accomplished men of their times) at the court of Chandragupta Vikramaditya. Kalidasa's works include plays, Epics and lyrics. His play 'Abhinjnana Sakunthalam' (Recognition of Sakunthala) is the most well known of all his works and it has been translated into various languages of the world. In all, 7 works of Kalidasa are available today. They are: 'Malavikagnimitra', 'Vikramorvasiyam' and 'Abhijnana Sakunthalam' (plays); 'Raghu Vansa' and 'Kumara Sambhavam' (Epics); 'Meghdoot' and 'Ritu Samhara' (lyrics).
As far as literacy merits are concerned, Meghdoot (cloud messenger) is the most excellent work.
2. Arundhati Roy
Writer & Social Activist
Susanna Arundhati Roy the first Indian woman to have won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize, was born on 24th November 1961 in Bengal and grew up in Aymanam village, Kottayam, Kerala.
She was born to parents Mary Roy a well-known social activist who won a landmark Supreme Court verdict that granted Christian women in Kerala the right to their parent's property and father a Bengali Hindu tea planter. Arundhati's parents separated when she was small and she did her formal education in Corpus Christi school run by her mother in Kottayam District, Kerala. When she was just 16, she left her home and settled in Delhi. There she did her degree in Architecture at the Delhi School of Architecture. During this period she met Gerard Da Cunha a fellow architecture student and married him but their marriage lasted only four years. After a brief stint in the field of architecture, she found that it was not for her. She left for Goa, making a life out at the beach, got tired of it after a few months, came back to Delhi. She took a job at the National Institute of Urban Affairs, met Pradeep Krishen, a film director now her husband who offered her a small role in 'Massey Saab'. She went to Italy on a scholarship for eight months to study the restoration of monuments. She realized she was a writer during those months in Italy.
After she returned from Italy she worked with Pradeep Krishen and they planned an episode television for Doordarshan called the 'Banyan Tree’, which didn't materialize and was shelved by the producers after shooting 2-3 episodes. She wrote and starred in 'In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones', a film on college life in India, based on her experiences in the University of Delhi, and wrote the screenplay for Pradip Krishen's film 'Electric Moon' (1992). She quickly became known for her work as screenwriter. Then she wrote a series of essays called 'The Great Indian Rape Trick' which attracted media attention, in defense of former dacoit Phoolan Devi, who she felt had been exploited by Shekhar Kapur's film 'Bandit Queen'. Then came her debut novel 'The God of Small Things' which shot her into prominence in 1997, by winning the prestigious British Booker prize in London and becoming an international best seller. The book, which took almost five years to complete, gives an insight to the social and political life in a village in South India through the eyes of seven year old twins and how it effects/disrupts their small lives. The book won £20,000 as prize and sold nearly 400,000 copies globally by October that year.
In the years following her success, she has turned to activism, writing 'The Cost of Living' a book comprising two essays 'The Greater Common Good’ (1999) and 'The End of Imagination’ (1998); the former against Indian Governments massive dam projects which displaced millions of poor people and the latter; its testing of Nuclear weapons. She has been an active participant in public demonstrations against the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river in Western India and has donated a substantial amount around 1.5million rupees, equivalent to her Booker Prize money, for the cause. She was even arrested along with other protestors for campaigning for the cause. 'Power Politics' her latest book published, takes on Enron the power corporation based in Houston trying to take over Maharashtra's energy sector. She has also spoken on and published several articles such as 'Promotion of equal rights' supporting equal rights for lower caste in India and 'War on Terrorism' (2001) against the Iraq war. Roy was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in May 2004 for her work in social campaigns and her advocacy of non-violence. In January 2006 she was awarded the Sahitya Akademi award for her collection of essays on contemporary issues, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, but she declined to accept it.
With her latest publications, Arundhati is carving a niche for herself as a political journalist. This unusual woman who has been on several lists of 'the 50 most beautiful women in the world' is not intimated by her success and fame but is an inspiration to all those who seek to speak up against the powers in support of the poor and the oppressed. She now lives in Delhi with her husband Pradip Krishen, who has two daughters Pia and Mithva from his previous marriage.
3. Herta Muller
The 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature Winner
Herta Müller was born on August 17, 1953 in the German-speaking town Nitzkydorf in Banat, Romania. Her parents were members of the German-speaking minority in Romania. Her father had served in the Waffen SS during World War II. Many German Romanians were deported to the Soviet Union in 1945, including Müller's mother who spent five years in a work camp in present-day Ukraine. Many years later, in Atemschaukel (2009), Müller was to depict the exile of the German Romanians in the Soviet Union. From 1973 to 1976, Müller studied German and Romanian literature at the university in Timişoara (Temeswar). During this period, she was associated with Aktionsgruppe Banat, a circle of young German-speaking authors who, in opposition to Ceauşescu’s dictatorship, sought freedom of speech. After completing her studies, she worked as a translator at a machine factory from 1977 to 1979. She was dismissed when she refused to be an informant for the secret police. After her dismissal, Securitate harassed her.
Müller made her debut with the collection of short stories Niederungen (1982), which was censored in Romania. Two years later, she published the uncensored version in Germany and, in the same year, Drückender Tango in Romania. In these two works, Müller depicts life in a small, German-speaking village and the corruption, intolerance and repression to be found there. The Romanian national press was very critical of these works while, outside of Romania, the German press received them very positively. Because Müller had publicly criticized the dictatorship in Romania, she was prohibited from publishing in her own country. In 1987, Müller emigrated together with her husband author Richard Wagner.
The novels Der Fuchs war damals schon der Jäger (1992), Herztier (1994; The Land of Green Plums, 1996) and Heute wär ich mir lieber nicht begegnet (1997; The Appointment, 2001) give, with chiselled details, a portrait of daily life in a stagnated dictatorship. Müller has given guest lectures at universities, colleges and other venues in Paderborn, Warwick, Hamburg, Swansea, Gainsville (Florida), Kassel, Göttingen, Tübingen and Zürich among other places. She lives in Berlin. Since 1995 she is a member of Deutsche für Sprache und Dichtung, in Darmstadt.
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