New Delhi: Acclaimed Hindi fiction writer and essayist Krishna Sobti passed away on Friday at the age of 93 due to prolonged illness, her family said.
 
“She died at a hospital here today. Her health had deteriorated in the last few months and she had been in and out of the hospital,” actress Ekavali Khanna, her grandniece, told IANS.
 
“She launched her new book in the hospital last month. Despite her ill health, she was always discussing arts, creative processes and life,” Khanna added.
 
Sobti, best known for her 1966 novel Mitro Marjani, won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1980 for her novel Zindaginama. Some of her other novels are Daar Se Bichhuri, Surajmukhi Andhere Ke and Yaaron Ke Yaar.
 
Sobti was born in Gujrat region of pre-Partition Punjab in 1925 and liberally used Punjabi dialect and terminologies even while writing in Hindi.
 
The acclaimed author and essayist died at a Delhi hospital, where she admitted for the last two months. Her condition was critical and she was in the ICU from the last one week.
 
The author was known for her work on female sexuality, partition, relationships between man and woman, changing dynamics of Indian society and the issues of female identity.
 
She filed a suit against novelist Amrita Pritam in 1984 for publishing a book titled Hardatt Ka Zindaginama. Sobti claimed that Pritam had violated copyright laws by using a title similar to her book. The suit was decided in her favour in 2011, six years after Pritam’s death.
 
Sobti also won the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest award given by the Akademi, in 1996. The writer was honoured with the Jnanpith Award in 2017 for her contribution to Indian literature. She was also offered Padma Bhushan, which she had declined.
 
Her last rites will be performed at 4 pm on Friday at the Nigam Bodh ghat in Delhi.
 
Her latest book Channa was launched at New Delhi World Book Fair on January 11.
 
Author-poet Ashok Vajpeyi said she was the “trustee of Indian democracy” through her contribution to literature.
 
“What she has done for Indian literature is unmatched. Her social message was very clear through her work, if we can call an author a trustee of democracy and constitution, she was it.
 
“She fought for equality and justice throughout her life. She was not just an eminent author of Hindi, but the entire Indian literature,” Mr Vajpeyi said.
 
Terming her demise as a “loss for world literature”, poet Ashok Chakradhar said she was the “pioneer of writing for women’s honour”.
 
“Her Mitro Marjani established a new type of writing style in Indian literature. I was lucky to have known her. And her demise is not just a loss for our country but the entire world,” Mr Chakradhar said.
 
    
 
 
Inputs from PTI
 

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