Bapsi Sidhwa

the story teller, with a unique story of her own

Born: August 11, 1938. Karachi

Honours: Premio Mondello (Italy) – 2007 (for ‘Water’) , Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Award -1993 , Literaturepreis(Germany) -1991 (for ‘Cracking India’) , Sitara-e-Imtiaz Pakistan-1991, National Endowment of the Arts Grant(US) -1986 , Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe/Harvard-1985 , Patras Bokhri Award -1985 ( ‘The Bride’ ) ,

Women Rights activist, Spokesperson for Pakistan in Asian Women’s Conference in 1975, founding member of the Women’s Action Forum, former president
of the International Women’s Club

Taught English Language at Columbia University, Brandeis University, St. Thomas University, Rice University, The University of Texas, and currently at Mt. Holyoke College.

picture (CC) Larry D. Moore*

Bapsi Sidhwa, The biggest name this country has ever produced in English Literature. She is said to have initiated the ‘Comic Realism’** style, which became a hallmark of subcontinent’s English writers later on. Her topics are real and tragic, but her story telling style is said to be the one with ‘comic relief’. A story teller of International acclaim, with a quite a story of her own.

She was born in Karachi, raised in Lahore, married & divorced in Mumbai, re-married in Lahore, Immigrated to US. A polio riddled childhood which forced her parents to home-school her till the age 15. She graduated from the well known Kinnaird College, Lahore in 1957. At 40, as a housewife and a mother she started her writing career with privately published novel ‘The Crow Eaters’ in 1978, a tale of a Parsi family in setting of Lahore city.

Her work is widely acclaimed, and is translated in German, French and Russian. Her novel ‘Ice Candy Man’ was the basis of the bollywood movie ‘ The Earth: 1947′ by Canadian-Indian director Deepa Mehta. Critically acclaimed film by the same director ‘Water’ (nominated as the best foreign movie for Oscars) was the basis of the later novel of the same title.

What makes her success unique is the fact that despite being a Zorastrian or a Parsi hailing from Pakistan,  which is an overwhelmingly monotonous Muslim society with a certain cultural bias towards non-muslims, she made it to the world stage. It is said that her ‘neutral’ and relatively ‘distant’ position on 1947 partition of Indian Subcontinent is what gave her a unique postiton as an observer to the events, which was the basis of many of her books.

Bapsi Sidhwa, nowadays, is English Language Professor and Writer-in-Residence for the Mt. Holyoke College of Liberal Arts for Women.

More on bapsi Sidhwa:

• Bapsi Sidhwa’s Website (http://www.bapsisidhwa.com/)
• A collection of critical text on Bapsi Sidhwa’s writing on her website.
• A List of studies on Bapsi Sidhwa’s work by Emmanuel Sampath Nelson
• A List of Bapsi Sidhwa Books (by Google Book Search)
• Her current and previous work is now published by the not-for-profit Milkweed Editions. The Publisher’s pages for her work:
  • Water
  • The Crow Eaters
  • Cracking India (also known as Ice Candy Man)
  • An American Brat
  • The Pakistani Bride
  • City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore
• The IMDB pages for movies assosciated with Bapti Sidhwa’s work.
  • Earth: 1947
  • Water
• Adding a totally personal observation,many of us must have seen Shoaib Mansoor’s much appreciated and accliamed ‘Khuda Kay Liya’, The character of Maryam played by Imaan Ali in that movie, seemed a mixture of two charcters from Sidhwa’s writings, the main character from Novel “The Pakistani Bride” and that of Feroza from her play “Sock’em with Honey”. (p.s. its not an allegation or anything, just pointing out the remarkable similarities among the three characters.)

*Picture of Bapsi Sidhwa use is by Larry D. Moore, used under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License. For source page, please click on the picture or here.

**quoting Aamer Hussein “Bapsi Sidhwa, Storyteller”, © 2000 Aamer Hussein.