Sachidanand hiranand biography of donald
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Akshaya Mukul – “Your job as a biographer is to dig and document, not to judge”
How does it feel to win this prize? What kind of reception were you hoping for while writing the book?
When your work gets recognized by such a prestigious prize, it is an occasion to celebrate. I had expected people who read Hindi literature to take an interest in my book but I am pleasantly surprised to see a positive response from readers of diverse backgrounds. I suppose this is because my book is not only a biography of Agyeya as a writer but also a history of the times he lived in. That covers the colonial period when India was under British rule, the first and the second World War, the Partition of the subcontinent, Independence, also the high point and the decline of the Nehruvian era.
You have made a lot of revelations about Agyeya’s personal life in this book. Might this affect how readers see his work? Or do you believe that people are able to separate the art from the artist?
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Agyeya (Sachchidananda Vatsayan) 1911–1987
"Agyeya (Sachchidananda Vatsayan) 1911–1987". Name Me a Word: Indian Writers Reflect on Writing, edited by Meena Alexander, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018, pp. 82-87. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300235654-011
(2018). Agyeya (Sachchidananda Vatsayan) 1911–1987. In M. Alexander (Ed.), Name Me a Word: Indian Writers Reflect on Writing (pp. 82-87). New Haven: Yale University Press. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300235654-011
2018. Agyeya (Sachchidananda Vatsayan) 1911–1987. In: Alexander, M. ed. Name Me a Word: Indian Writers Reflect on Writing. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 82-87. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300235654-011
"Agyeya (Sachchidananda Vatsayan) 1911–1987" In Name Me a Word: Indian Writers Reflect on Writing edited by Meena Alexander, 82-87. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300235654-011
Agyeya (Sachchidananda Vatsayan) 1911–1987. In: Alexander M (ed.) Name Me a Word:
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How the firebrand revolutionary Sachchidananda Hirananda Vatsyayan Sastri became the writer Agyeya
Within a month of his arrest, Vatsyayan had begun writing. He wrote straight through his incarceration, despite the subhuman conditions of imprisonment and occasional solitary confinement. He wrote on whatever he could lay his hands on, pouring poetry, diary entries, stories, essays and translations out into school exercise books and the back of discarded tribunal proceedings papers.
Vatsyayan was also able to explore a new passion for pastel crayons, often drawing self-portraits with evocative titles like ‘His First Offence’. Slowly, he began smuggling his writing out with the help of a fellow defendant on bail or a visitor. And books and journals were smuggled in.
In the second year of his imprisonment, a door to the literary world opened to him in the form of Jainendra Kumar, a writer often credited with introducing psychological insight to the modern Hindi novel. Six years olde