Mohan Rakesh

MOHAN RAKESH (1925-1972) was a modernist innovator in Hindi who deeply influenced India's multilingual literary culture after Independence. His full-length plays-Ashadh ka ek din (1958), Lahron ke rajhans (1963) and Adhe adhure (1969)-became seminal works of urban drama and theatre, while his fiction sustained the 'new story' and 'new novel' movements nationally. Consolidated by four decades of posthumous publication, his prolific output as theatre theorist, literary and cultural...See more

MOHAN RAKESH (1925-1972) was a modernist innovator in Hindi who deeply influenced India's multilingual literary culture after Independence. His full-length plays-Ashadh ka ek din (1958), Lahron ke rajhans (1963) and Adhe adhure (1969)-became seminal works of urban drama and theatre, while his fiction sustained the 'new story' and 'new novel' movements nationally. Consolidated by four decades of posthumous publication, his prolific output as theatre theorist, literary and cultural critic, translator, travel writer, diarist and correspondent now positions him as a transformative figure in postcolonial literature worldwide. APARNA DHARWADKER is professor of English and interdisciplinary theatre studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of the prize-winning book Theatres of Independence: Drama, Theory, and Urban Performance in India since 1947 (2005). VINAY DHARWADKER is professor of comparative literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of Kabir: The Weaver's Songs (2003) and an editor of The Oxford Anthology of Modern Indian Poetry (1994) and The Norton Anthology of World Literature (2012). See less