30 January - 3 February 2025 | Hotel Clarks Amer, Jaipur
Vidya Pradhan has been a writer ever since her mother told her to get off her rear-end and do something worthwhile. She has published features and children's books and has written a memoir for a tech personality. The Wise Woman and Other Stories is her first book of translations. In her spare time she reads everything from science fiction to Regency romances to murder mysteries and loves to hike and bird-watch. She lives in Palo Alto, California.
The much loved writer Mannu Bhandari's inspired body of work forges a significant link in the evolution of modern Hindi fiction. Her novels and short stories are a testament to a time and a moment and to the nature of humans, of men and women and their complex relationships. Vidya Pradhan's translations, presented as The Best of Mannu Bhandari: The Wise Woman and Other Stories, introduces us to unshackled women, some flawed and self centered in the eyes of a patriarchal society and yet worthy of agency and respect. Taking forward Bhandari’s unflinching gaze, the stories in this collection are a testament to the inner lives of women, their strength and their fragility , and the odds they battle against, then and now. In conversation with writer and translator Poonam Saxena, Pradhan is joined by Bhandari’s daughter Rachana Yadav as they explore the profound spirit and inimitable style at the root of these transformative tales.