Renowned author Mannu Bhandari died on Monday, ANI reported. She was 90. Bhandari was unwell and was being treated at a hospital in Haryana’s Gurugram city, her daughter Rachna Yadav said.
Bhandari was born in Bhanpura city of Madhya Pradesh in 1931 and grew up in Rajasthan’s Ajmer. Her father Sukhsampat Rai was a freedom fighter, who worked on English to Hindi and English to Marathi dictionaries.
Some of Bhandari’s notable works include Mahabhoj (1979), Ek Plate Sailab (1962), Yehi Sach Hai aur Anya Kahaniya (1966), Teen Nigahen Ek Tasveer (1969), and Trishanku (1999).
“The quiet heroism of her battle, the odds against women in a hyper-patriarchal society, the small victories of self-assertion and independence, sparkle in her stories and give them resonance even with the passage of time,” writer Namita Gokhale had said in an article for Scroll.in.
Bhandari was also one of the key members of the Nayi Kahani movement of Hindi literature.
“The ‘Nayi Kahani’ movement mirrored the angst of the new and emergent middle classes, and the conflicts that arose as they struggled for a contested individualism, and the right to articulate their hopes and desires,” Gokhale had said in the Scroll.in article.
Gokhale also wrote that Bhandari was one of the authors who took on “entrenched patriarchy” that they were born in.
Bhandari was married to author Rajendra Yadav, who died in 2013.
Many social media users paid their tributes to Bhandari on Monday.
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