Chitra Mudgal

Born: 10 December 1943

• She is one of the leading literary figures of modern Hindi literature.
• She is the first Indian woman to receive the coveted Vyas Samman for her novel Avaan.
• In 2019 she was awarded India’s highest literary award, the Sahitya Akademi, for her novel Post Box No. 203, Naalasopara.
• Her novel ‘Aavaan’, portrayed the lives and times of the trade union movement when nearly 300,000 workers spearheaded by Datta Samant went on a year-long strike of the Mumbai textile mills, which finally saw the collapse of the city’s trademark industry.
• This work has been unanimously acknowledged by the critics as a masterpiece of literary work and stands as a classic novel in Hindi Literature.
• The plot of her novel Aavaan was conceived following the murder of a committed trade union leader, Shankar Guha Niyogi.
• His murder was in fact followed by the murder of another popular unionist of Bombay, Dr. Datta Samant.
• Subsequently, another labor leader of Madhya Pradesh, from Maihar, was killed.
• The murder of Dr. Datta Samant who was her guide and philosopher “shattered her” and became the bases of her novel Aavaan.

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