Githa Hariharan (born 1954) is an Indian writer and editor. She belongs to the second generation of postcolonial women writers such as Shashi Deshpande, Arundhati Roy, Manju Kapur and Anita Nair ( Anita Nair) who contributed to the structural leaning of Indian literature towards feminist ideologies and social issues. His critically acclaimed works include the novels “The Ghost of Master Vasu” (1994), “While Sleepwalking” (1999), “The Siege” (2003), “The Escape” (2009), and the short story collection “I Have Become.” Tide” (2019) entitled “The Art of Dying” (1993), and a collection of essays “Almost Home: Cities and Other Places” (2014).
Wiki/Biography
Githa Hariharan was born in 1954 in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, southern India (age 69 in 2023). She grew up in Mumbai and Manila and also studied Carnatic music. In 1974, she received a BA in English Literature from Bombay University. She earned her master’s degree in communications from the Graduate School of Corporate and Political Communication at Fairfield University in Connecticut.
family and caste
She belongs to a Tamil Brahmin family.
Parents and siblings
Her father PS Hariharan is a journalist with The Times of India. He is also the founder and publisher of The Economic Times. He has been with The Times of India since the age of 18, later becoming its financial editor. In 1961, he was transferred to the Economic Times as its first editor. He died on October 12, 2019 due to long illness. . Geetha Hariharan has two siblings.
Githa Hariharan’s father, PS Hariharan
Geetha Hariharan and her family
husband and children
Githa Hariharan married DR. Mohan Ram in 1982. She has two sons, Nishad born in 1981 and Rishab Bailey in July 1984.
Geetha Hariharan and her children
Signature/Autograph
Profession
From 1979 to 1984, Githa Hariharan worked as an editor at Eastern Longman’s offices in Mumbai, Chennai and New Delhi. From 1985 to 2005, she held a freelance editorial position. Githa Hariharan has served as visiting professor at Dartmouth College, George Washington University, University of Kent, Nanyang Technological University, Jamia Millia Islamia, and University of Goa. In addition, Hariharan is one of the founding members of the Indian Writers Forum. His works include “The Art of Death” (1993), “The Ghost of Master Vasu” (1994), “Sleepwalking” (1999), “Fortress Under Siege” (2003), “History of Escape” (2009), “I Have Become a Tide” (2019), Almost Home: Cities and Other Places (2014), and a co-edited children’s collection called Sorry, Best Friend! ” (1997), among others. Her works have been adapted into many different languages such as Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Malayalam, Urdu and Vietnamese. She received a writing scholarship at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Githa Hariharan is Consulting Editor of Guftugu Collection.
author
- The Thousand Faces of Night, Penguin, 1992; Women’s Press, 1996
- The Art of Dying, Penguin Books, 1993
- The Ghost of Master Vasu, Vikings, Penguin Books India, 1994; Penguin Group, 1998
- When Dreaming of Travel, Picado, 1999/Penguin Group Australia, 2008
- Winning Team, Illustrator Taposhi Ghoshal, Rupa & Co., 2004
- The Siege, Pantheon Books, 2003
- Escape History, Penguin Group, 2009
- Almost Home, The Restless Book, 2014
- I have become a trend, Simon & Schuster India, 2019
edit
- Southern Harvest, Kath, 1993
- Sorry, best friend! , illustrated by Ranjan De, Tulika Publishing House, 1997
- The Fight for India: A Citizen’s Reader, Speech Co-Editor Salim Yusufji, 2019
Awards, Honors, Achievements
- In 1993, her first novel, A Thousand Faces of Night, won the Commonwealth Writers Award for Best First Novel.
- Three of her novels were nominated for the Booker Prize.
- Githa Hariharan’s novel In Times of Siege (2003) was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.
- Githa Hariharan is a member of the jury of the Neustadt International Literary Prize.
Facts/Trivia
- In December 1984, the petitioners jointly applied to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for a 9% relief bond in the name of her minor son, amounting to Rs. 20,000. The applicant, the mother of the child, applied to become the natural guardian. The RBI returned Ms Githa Hariharan’s application, asking the couple to produce an application form stating that the father of the child was the guardian of the family or a certificate from a competent authority in favor of the mother’s custody. In 1995, with the help of Indira Jaising and a collective of lawyers, Githa Hariharan filed a challenge to the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, seeking to convert Section 6(a) of the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956 (HMG) and Section 19(b) of the Hindu Minorities and Guardianship Act. The Guardians and Wards Act, 1890 (GW) was declared unconstitutional and a petition was filed on the ground of violation of Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution of India. The Supreme Court stated,
In matters of custody, the father cannot be considered to have priority over the mother.”
- In an interview, Githa Hariharan spoke about her petition to the court that the mother was the “natural” guardian of the child. she says,
It’s hard to separate the woman, writer and citizen in you. Personally, it’s very important for me to challenge this: imagine being told that you are not the “natural” guardian of the child you have given birth to – and that too in a society that places a high value on motherhood! But the important thing to remember is that all personal laws in India are anti-women, anti-lower castes, anti-anyone who was marginalized when these traditional laws were made. “
- In 2014, a collection of nonfiction essays edited by Githa Hariharan, From India to Palestine: Essays on Solidarity, was published. She includes articles written by herself, Meena Alexander, Aijaz Ahmad, Ritu Menon and Nayantara Sehgal.
- In an interview, she called herself a feminist and said:
Am I a writer with a special focus on “women’s issues”? Am I a feminist? The answer to both questions is yes. I want to make it clear that my choices in my life have been shaped by what I consider to be feminist choices. … Anyway, no matter how you define yourself, all of our work is influenced in some way by feminism and the ideas of Freud and Marx. Of course, this applies to both men and women. So, I’m a writer and a feminist, among other things! “
- For many years, she wrote a monthly column in The Telegraph, Kolkata, covering various aspects of culture, politics and society. Over the years she has become a cultural commentator through her writing and activism.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education