From ancient epics like “Ramayana” to prolific modern writers like Salman Rushdie, famous authors from India can be found in almost every genre, ranging from fiction, non-fiction, education, and so on.
If you want to escape from reality for a while and read some outstanding literature, here are a few famous Indian authors whose work deserves some attention.
Khushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh is an Indian novelist, writer, and journalist who was born in 1915 in Hadila, now in Pakistan. Singh was known for his sharp, satirical wit, and in his works, he held up a mirror to Indian society.
His acclaimed 1956 novel, Train to Pakistan, drew inspiration from his firsthand encounter with the Partition of India in 1947. Although this book is classified as fiction, the author focused on the authentic portrayal of events.
Apart from Train to Pakistan, he published the two-volume History of the Sikhs and many novels, including Delhi and The Company of Women.
In July 2000, he received Sulabh International Social Service Organization’s “Honest Man of the Year Award” for his courage, honesty, and insightful writing.
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth, also one of the famous Indian authors, won various awards for his work, such as the WH Smith Literary Award, the Sahitya Academy Award, and the Padma Shri. Seth was born in Calcutta in 1952 and went on to study at Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Seth is well-known for his epic novel The Suitable Boy. In 2020, the BBC adapted the story and produced a TV miniseries that explores the relationships of four Indian families.
R.K. Narayan
R. K. Narayan is a famous author from India, born in 1906 in Madras, now known as Chennai. His works mainly revolved around the fictional town of Malgudi in South India, depicting everyday life in a captivating way.
Some of his most notable works include:
R. K. Narayan won several awards, including the Padma Bhushan in 1964, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1958, and the AC Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature in 1980. Additionally, he was honored with the Padma Vibhushan in 2000.
Chetan Baghat
Born in 1974 in Dehli, Baghat is a columnist, novelist, screenwriter, and public speaker. He is well-known for his books:
Most of his work touches on issues related to youth and their aspirations.
Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is among the most famous authors from India. Roy was born in 1961 in Shillong and earned her degree from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi.
She is known for War Talk (2003), Power Politics (2001), and Capitalism:A Ghost Story (2014), among many more.
Arundhati Roy won the 1997 Man Booker Prize for fiction for her debut book, The God of Small Things, which brought her global acclaim. This semi-autobiographical novel, which also earned a spot on The New York Times bestseller list, explored Roy’s unique childhood encounters.
Ruskin Bond
Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, India, in 1934. At seventeen, he wrote his first novel, The Room on the Roof, which won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957 and established him as a leading novelist and an icon among Indian authors and children’s writers.
Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian-American author born in 1967 in London. She works as a creative writing professor at Princeton University and is well known for her writings about the Indian diaspora.
Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000 for The Interpreter of Maladies. In 1999, she released a short story collection of the same name, which depicted the difficulties faced by Indians living in India and abroad.
In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Lahiri has won several awards:
- The Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002.
- The TransAtlantic Award from the Henfield Foundation in 1993.
- The National Humanities Medal in 2014.
- The Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2000.
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is an Indian-born author well-known for his allegorical books that examine historical and philosophical topics through fantastical characters, somber humor, and exuberant prose. He also has gained notoriety for depicting delicate religious and political issues.
In 1975, he released his debut book, Grimus. In 1981, he released Midnight’s Children, a well-read fable about contemporary India. Rushdie won the Booker Prize for this book in 1981. He also won the Booker of Bookers (1993) and the Best of the Booker (2008).
Rushdie’s fourth book, The Satanic Verses, was met with conflicting reviews. The book contained several chapters that depicted a character based on Prophet Muhammad and portrayed him in an unflattering light.
Rabindranath Tagore
Born in 1861, Rabindranath Tagore was the youngest son of Debendranath Tagore, a prominent leader of the Brahmo Samaj. He enjoyed early literary success in his native Bengal, and his translations of some of his works helped him earn notoriety in the West. As a result, he rose to fame as a poet and writer.
His debut poem, Mansai, was published in 1890 and was well-liked by Bengali readers. He is well known for his poetry collection Gitanjali and 80 short stories in Galpaguchchha.
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay was born in 1876 in Hooghly, Bengal Presidency. He started writing very young, and his early work, such as Korel and Kashinath, is still famous in literature today.
He released Parineeta, a Bengali book, in 1914 as a form of social protest that tackled then-current societal concerns, including religion and social class.
Aravind Adiga
Aravind Adiga was born in 1974 in Mangalore, Madras, now known as Chennai. He studied at Oxford and Columbia Universities and has lived in Britain, Australia, and India. Adiga comes from a family with strong connections, including his great-grandfather, a Madras politician, and his grandfather, the chairman of Karnataka Bank.
The White Tiger, Adiga’s first book, is a collection of unsent letters from Delhi-based chauffeur and murderer Balram Halwai, who fled his village to commit crimes. It was published in 2008 and won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
Mulk Raj Anand
Mulk Raj Anand, an Indian pioneer in English writing, was born in Peshawar, modern-day Pakistan, in 1905. He was one of the famous authors from India to include Punjabi and Hindustani idioms in his English works, which further emphasized his distinctive writing style and propelled him to fame.
Early in his career, he attracted a large audience on a global scale and became well-known for his realistic fiction, which includes the books Coolie and Untouchable.
Anand’s literary works are renowned worldwide for representing the oppressed and the reality of poverty, exploitation, and misery.
Amrita Pritam
Amrita Pritam, an Indian author and poet, is regarded as the first prominent female poet and novelist of Punjabi descent in the 20th century. Her honors include the “Sahitya Akademi,” “Bharatiya Jnanpith,” and “Padma Vibhushan,” among others.
Born in 1919 in undivided India, Pritam experienced the horrors of the partition as a young woman, a traumatic event that profoundly affected her.
The sorrow, anxiety, and anguish experienced by people who witnessed the division were captured in her poetry, Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah Nu. She was inspired to write the Punjabi novel, Pinjar, which depicts the difficulties of these oppressed women because of their lack of power and discrimination during the period.
Kiran Desai
Kiran Desai is an Indian-born American author born in 1971 in New Delhi, India.
Her second book, The Inheritance of Loss, was a worldwide bestseller and was awarded the 2006 Booker Prize.
The Inheritance of Loss is set in the middle of the 1980s in India, touching the story of a Cambridge-educated Indian judge who retires to Kalimpong and lives there with his granddaughter. But, rebels from Nepal disturb their way of life.
The novel also touches on the story of the judge’s cook’s son, an illegal immigrant and a survivor in the United States. The Inheritance of Loss received accolades for thoroughly examining immigration, terrorism, and globalization.
