| Vijaydan Detha | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 1, 1926 Borunda Rajasthan |
| Occupation | writer |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Genres | fiction, satirist, folk-lore |
| Subjects | socialist, anti-feudal, feminist |
| Spouse(s) | Sayar Kanwar |
| Children | Kuberdan, Mahendra |
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Vijaydan Detha also known as Bijji is a noted writer from Rajasthan and a recepeient of Padma Shri award. He is also recipient of several other awards such as Sahitya Akademi Award and Sahitya Chudamani Award.
He has more than 800 short stories to his credit, which are translated into English and other languages. He is co-founder of Rupayan Sansthan with late Komal Kothari, an institute that documents Rajasthani folk-lore, arts and music. His literary works include Bataan ri Phulwari (garden of tales), a fourteen volume collection of stories that draws on folk-lore and spoken dialects of Rajasthan. His stories and novels have been adapted for many plays and movies including Habib Tanvir's Charandas Chor and Amol Palekar’s Paheli.
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Vijaydan Detha hails from charan caste. His father Sabaldan Detha and grandfather Jugtidan Detha were also well known poets of Rajasthan. Detha lost his father and two brothers in a feud at the age of four year. At the age of six he moved to Jaitaran (25 km from Borunda) where his brother Sumerdan used to work in civil court. He studied there till class IV. Than his brother transferred to Barmer and Detha continued his study at there. Detha in his school years was poor in English language and had to face many embarrassing moments. In Barmer, while competing with another student Narsinghraj Purohit, he realized that he wants to be a writer. His brother than transferred to Jodhpur where Detha studied in Durbar School.
Vijaydan Detha considers Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay as his first inspirer. He is equally good fan of Chekov. In beginning he was critical of Tagore but after reading Tagore's Stripatra he became fan of Tagore.
Detha joined college in 1944, by that time he had already established his name in poetry, however he gives credit for it to his cousin brother Kuberdan Detha, who had left school after standard X. Vijaydan says he use to pass his cousins poems in his name, applause brought from those poems made him to think to establish his own name in writing.
One of his first books to create a storm was Bapu Ke Teen Hatyare. The book is critique of the work of Harivanshrai Bachchhan, Sumitra Nadan Pant and Narendra Sharma. The trio brought out books about Gandhi within two months of Gandhi's death.
Nathuram Godse may have killed Gandhi physically, but these three writers killed his soul
— Vijaydan Detha , Bapu Ke Teen Hatyare
In 1950-52, Detha reda and was inspired by 19th Century Russian literature. That is when he thought if you do not want to be mediocre writer, he should return to his village and write in Rajasthani. By that time he had already written 1300 poems and 300 short stories.
Detha also been credited for editing following works [1]
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