Modern Prose Writers and Their Major Works

This topic supplies two questions and rests entirely on memory. The paper asks for the pairing of writer and work, and sometimes for the form as well, so prepare by making triples rather than by reading a list — one writer, one form and one work held together.

Novelists

Jhootha Sach is regarded as the largest Hindi novel written on the pain of Partition, and Shekhar: Ek Jivani is the major psychological novel in Hindi. Chitralekha turns on the question of sin and virtue.

✗ Banabhatt ki Atmakatha was written by Banabhatta  |  ✓ It is a novel by Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, not an autobiography

Short Story Writers

• Jaishankar Prasad — Akashdeep, Puraskar, Gunda.
• Jainendra Kumar — regarded as the founder of the psychological story.
• Agyeya — Gangrene, also called Roz, and Vipathga.
• Mohan Rakesh, Kamleshwar and Rajendra Yadav — the three leading names of the Nai Kahani movement.

The Nai Kahani movement began in the nineteen fifties and made the post-independence middle class, the city and broken relationships its subject. This trio of names is asked together in the paper.

Essayists and Critics

Hindi Sahitya ka Itihas is the foundational work of both Shukla's criticism and his history — the question on the division into periods comes from it. Ramvilas Sharma and Namvar Singh are the two largest names in modern Hindi criticism.

One point returns again and again in this area — the matching of form with writer. A single writer may work in several forms, so the question often asks which form a given work belongs to. Jaishankar Prasad was poet, dramatist and novelist alike, and Hazari Prasad Dwivedi was essayist, critic and novelist.

Frequently Asked Questions

Whose work is Banabhatt ki Atmakatha?

Acharya Hazari Prasad Dwivedi's. The title suggests an autobiography written by the Sanskrit writer Banabhatta, but it is in fact a novel by Dwivedi in which Banabhatta is made a character. That very confusion is what the question is built on.

What is the subject of Jhootha Sach?

The Partition of India and the years that followed. Yashpal portrays the violence, the displacement and the new society that took shape afterwards, across two volumes. It is regarded as the largest Hindi novel written on Partition.

What was the Nai Kahani movement?

A movement in the short story that began in the nineteen fifties and made post-independence middle-class life, urban loneliness and breaking relationships its subject. Mohan Rakesh, Kamleshwar and Rajendra Yadav are treated as its three leading names.

Who are the major names in Hindi criticism?

Acharya Ramchandra Shukla is the foundation of modern Hindi criticism, with Chintamani and Hindi Sahitya ka Itihas as his principal works. After him Ramvilas Sharma and Namvar Singh gave criticism a new direction, and both are asked by name.