LucretiaGoldhar at 04:43, 29 April 2026

2026-04-29T04:43:23Z

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{{short description|Indian writer based in New Delhi (born 1954)}}
{{Indian patronymic|Githa|Hariharan}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2016}}
{{Use Indian English|date=October 2016}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Githa Hariharan
| image = Keralaliteraturefestival 08775.JPG
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1954}}
| birth_place = [[Coimbatore]], [[Madras State]]<br/>(now [[Tamil Nadu]]), India
| death_date = 
| death_place =
| death_cause =
| other_names =
| known_for = ''The Thousand Faces of Night''<br/>''[[I Have Become the Tide]]''
| occupation = Writer, editor
| website = {{URL|https://githahariharan.com/}}
}}

'''Githa Hariharan''' (born 1954) is an Indian writer and editor based in [[New Delhi]]. Her [[first novel]], ''The Thousand Faces of Night'', won the [[Commonwealth Writers' Prize]] for the best first novel in 1993.<ref name="Mukherjee 2015">{{cite news |last1=Mukherjee |first1=Sumana |title=Non-fiction: a fiction writer's gift |url=https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/niyjWR5JElOTjaNkFcm9jM/Nonfiction-a-fiction-writers-gift.html |access-date=30 August 2022 |work=[[Mint (newspaper)|Mint]] |date=February 21, 2015}}</ref> Her other works include the short story collection ''The Art of Dying'' (1993), the novels ''The Ghosts of Vasu Master'' (1994), ''When Dreams Travel'' (1999), ''In Times of Siege'' (2003), ''Fugitive Histories'' (2009) and ''[[I Have Become the Tide]]'' (2019), and a collection of essays entitled ''Almost Home: Cities and Other Places'' (2014).

Githa Hariharan has also written [[Children's literature|children's stories]] and co-edited a collection for children called ''Sorry, Best Friend!'' (1997). She has also edited a collection of translated short fiction, ''A Southern Harvest'' (1993), the essay collection ''From India to Palestine: Essays in Solidarity'' (2014) and co-edited ''Battling for India: A Citizen’s Reader'' (2019).

==Biography==
Githa Hariharan was born in 1954 in [[Coimbatore]], [[Madras State]] (now [[Tamil Nadu]]), India.<ref name="Oxford 1996">{{cite book |title=The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English |date=1996 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780192122711 |chapter=Hariharan, Githa|via=Oxford Reference}}</ref> She was raised in a [[Tamil Brahmin]] home in Bombay and Manila<ref>{{cite book |last1=Meenakshi |first1=Bharat |title=Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English |date=2005 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-27885-0 |url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/routpcl/hariharan_githa_1954/0 |access-date=30 August 2022 |chapter=Hariharan, Githa (1954-)}}</ref> with two siblings.<ref name="Bharat 2003">{{cite book |author1=Meenakshi Bharat |editor1-last=Sanga |editor1-first=Jaina C. |editor2-last=Nelson |editor2-first=Emmanuel Sampath |title=South Asian Novelists in English: An A-to-Z Guide |date=2003 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |pages=111–114 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qlpKOzsOc-IC |access-date=31 August 2022 |chapter=Githa Hariharan 1957|isbn=9780313318856 }}</ref>{{rp|111}} Her father was a journalist for the ''[[Times of India]]''<ref name="Bharat 2003"/>{{rp|111}} and a founder and publisher of ''[[The Economic Times]]''.<ref name="Atlantic 2007" /> During her childhood, she was encouraged to read, and she studied [[Carnatic music]].<ref name="Bharat 2003"/>{{rp|111}}

She completed a B.A. in English Literature from [[University of Mumbai|Bombay University]] in 1974 and an M.A. in Communications from [[Fairfield University]], Connecticut<ref>{{cite news |last1=Riggan |first1=William |title=The 1994 Neustadt International Prize for Literature: jurors and candidates. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40149846 |access-date=30 August 2022 |work=[[World Literature Today]] |date=Winter 1994|jstor=40149846 }}</ref> in 1977.<ref name="Gao bio" />

From 1979 to 1984, Hariharan worked as an editor in the Mumbai, Chennai and New Delhi offices of [[Orient Blackswan|Orient Longman]].<ref name="Gao bio"/> From 1985 to 2005, she worked as a freelance editor.<ref name="Gao bio"/> She has been a Visiting Professor or Writer-in-Residence at [[Dartmouth College]],<ref name="Dartmouth bio">{{cite web |title=Githa Hariharan |url=https://montgomery.dartmouth.edu/githa-hariharan |website=The Montgomery Fellows Program |date=6 June 2016 |publisher=[[Dartmouth College]] |access-date=30 August 2022 |archive-date=31 January 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240131092120/https://montgomery.dartmouth.edu/githa-hariharan |url-status=dead }}</ref> [[George Washington University]], the [[University of Kent]], [[Nanyang Technological University]], [[Jamia Millia Islamia]] and [[Goa University]].<ref name="Gao bio">{{cite web |title=EGO 127 Reading and Writing Conflict ( 1 credit course- 15 hours) By Githa Hariharan, Visiting Chair Professor, Kavivarya Bakibaab Borkar Chair in Literature, Goa University |url=https://vrpp.unigoa.ac.in/eg-127-ego-127-reading-and-writing-conflict-1-credit-course-15-hours-by-ms-githa-hariharan-visiting-chair-professor-kavivarya-bakibaab-borkar-chair-in-literature-goa-university/ |website=Visiting Research Professors Programme |publisher=[[Goa University]] |access-date=30 August 2022}}</ref>

Githa Hariharan is also a founder member of the Indian Writers' Forum.<ref>{{cite news |title=Githa Hariharan |url=https://indianexpress.com/profile/columnist/githa-hariharan/ |access-date=30 August 2022 |work=[[The Indian Express]] |quote=The writer is a founder member of the Indian Writers’ Forum}}</ref>

==Writing career==
According to ''The Atlantic Companion to Literature'', "Githa Hariharan's works belong to the renaissance of Indo-English literature which began in the early 1980s when [[Salman Rushdie]]'s novel ''[[Midnight's Children]]'' appeared."<ref name="Atlantic 2007" /> Hariharan published her first novel, ''The Thousand Faces of Night'', in 1992,<ref name="Bharat 2003" />{{rp|112}}<ref>{{Cite book|title=A Concise History Indian Literature in English|last=Mehrotra|first=Arvind|publisher=Permanent Black|year=2008|isbn=978-8178243023|location=Ranikhet}}</ref> which she wrote while on maternity leave from work.<ref name="Atlantic 2007">{{cite book |editor1-last=Ray |editor1-first=Mohit K. |title=The Atlantic Companion to Literature in English |date=2007 |publisher=Atlantic Publishers & Distributors (P) Limited |isbn=9788126908325 |pages=230–232 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A_YatfLrgnMC |access-date=1 September 2022}}</ref> According to Meenakshi Bharat, this book "questions the confining code of patriarchy and brings to light the survival strategies of three generations of women" and Hariharan "makes concerted use of myth and folktale to enlarge the space of the lives of "real" people, especially women."<ref name="Bharat 2003" />{{rp|112}} She then published a collection of short stories, ''The Art of Dying'', in 1993.<ref name="Bharat 2003" />{{rp|112}}

In ''The Ghost of Vasu Master'' (1994), a retired schoolteacher, Vasu Master, uses storytelling to support a student who "either cannot or will not speak."<ref name="Bharat 2003" />{{rp|112}} After forming the Movement for Secularism with other women writers, she wrote children's stories, and co-edited the collection ''Sorry, Best Friend'' (1997) with Shama Futehally.<ref name="Bharat 2003" />{{rp|111}} In her novel ''When Dreams Travel'' (1999), Hariharan retells ''[[One Thousand and One Nights|Arabian Nights]]'' with [[Scheherazade]] and her sister Dunyazad as protagonists.<ref name="Bharat 2003" />{{rp|112–113}}<ref>{{cite news |title=When Dreams Travel (By Githa Hariharan) |url=https://www.sentinelassam.com/saturday-fare/when-dreams-travel-by-githa-hariharan/ |access-date=1 September 2022 |work=[[The Sentinel (Guwahati)|The Sentinel]] |date=October 6, 2018}}</ref> According to Hariharan, her interest as a writer was "not in the story of how the 1001 nights began or happened, but where that tale ends. What happens in stories after the moment when people live happily ever after."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kang |first1=Bhavdeep |title='The Cerebral Erotica Was Fun' |url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/the-cerebral-erotica-was-fun/206903 |access-date=1 September 2022 |work=[[Outlook (Indian magazine)|Outlook]] |date=February 1, 1999 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190422075302/https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/the-cerebral-erotica-was-fun/206903 |archive-date=April 22, 2019}}</ref>

Githa Hariharan has described ''In Times of Siege'' (2003) as her "first overtly political novel."<ref name="Chakrabarti 2019">{{cite news |last1=Chakrabarti |first1=Paromita |title='There is no such thing as an objective fiction writer' |url=https://indianexpress.com/article/express-sunday-eye/there-is-no-such-thing-as-an-objective-fiction-writer/ |access-date=30 August 2022 |work=[[The Indian Express]] |date=March 10, 2019}}</ref> According to ''The Atlantic Companion to Literature'', it "is in fact a radical book which discusses the ruling political parties' attempt to rewrite history [...] to give the educational system a Hindu slant."<ref name="Atlantic 2007" /> In a 2019 interview with ''[[The Indian Express]]'', she stated, "My other books, too, looked at the power structure but I finally decided that I had the confidence and the rage to write about where I was living."<ref name="Chakrabarti 2019"/> In ''[[The Hindu]]'', Gowri Ramnarayan writes that ''In Times of Siege'', her "angst is over the betrayal of the secularist vision which shaped the nation, the shrinkage of space in contemporary India for debate, dissent, for the co-existence of pluralities, minorities, cultures."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Ramnarayan |first1=Gowri |title=Plea for pluralism |url=http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mp/2003/04/22/stories/2003042200060100.htm |access-date=1 September 2022 |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=April 22, 2003 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030821155147/http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mp/2003/04/22/stories/2003042200060100.htm |archive-date=August 21, 2003}}</ref>

In 2014, her edited volume of nonfiction essays ''From India to Palestine: Essays in Solidarity'' was published and includes essays by herself, [[Meena Alexander]], [[Aijaz Ahmad]], [[Ritu Menon]] and [[Nayantara Sehgal]].<ref name="Dundoo 2014">{{cite news |last1=Dundoo |first1=Sangeetha Devi |title='My voice is a medley' |url=https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/my-voice-is-a-medley/article5623104.ece |access-date=30 August 2022 |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=January 27, 2014}}</ref> Her 2016 collection ''Almost Home'' is described by ''[[Kirkus Reviews]]'' as "essays on identity, place, and the pervasiveness of the past in the present, by a global literary citizen" and "an uneven collection—never just travel writing or political analysis—that nonetheless seems to map new territory of its own."<ref>{{cite news |title=Almost Home |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/githa-hariharan/almost-home-cities/ |access-date=1 September 2022 |work=[[Kirkus Reviews]] |date=January 15, 2016}}</ref> In a review for ''[[The Hindu]]'', Latha Anantharaman writes "the essay on Algeria stands out [...] Hariharan discusses the psychology of colonialism, what happens to the identity of a people when you occupy their land and force them to speak French, think in French, and dress like the French, what happens when you indoctrinate them in French principles and philosophy and yet deny that they are French" and further states "It is in her essay on Palestine that Hariharan best evokes the living voices of people under occupation."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Anantharaman |first1=Latha |title=Home is where the heart is |url=https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/home-is-where-the-heart-is/article7067756.ece |access-date=1 September 2022 |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=April 4, 2015}}</ref>

Her sixth novel ''[[I Have Become the Tide]]'' was published in 2019 and is the third with a focus on contemporary India.<ref name="Sharma 2019">{{cite news |last1=Sharma |first1=Manik |title=Githa Hariharan on her latest novel I Have Become The Tide, Rohith Vemula, politics of her writing |url=https://www.firstpost.com/living/githa-hariharan-on-her-latest-novel-i-have-become-the-tide-rohith-vemula-politics-of-her-writing-6184071.html |access-date=1 September 2022 |work=[[Firstpost]] |date=March 6, 2019}}</ref> In 2020, a [[Malayalam]] translation of the novel was published by Mātr̥bhūmi Buks.

Githa Hariharan co-edited the 2019 essay collection ''Battling for India: A Citizen’s Reader'' with Salim Yusufji. In a review for ''[[The Wire (India)|The Wire]]'', Priyanka Tripathi writes, "Drawing its vision from Ambedkar's democracy, the book reiterates that an Indian citizen’s political democracy (full rights to the nation) becomes null and void in the absence of social (discrimination on the basis of caste and age) and economic (freeing all Indians from poverty) democracy."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Tripathi |first1=Priyanka |title=Review: Battling Hatred and Sectarianism for Indian Democracy |url=https://thewire.in/books/battling-for-india-democracy-sectarianism |access-date=1 September 2022 |work=[[The Wire (India)|The Wire]] |date=April 10, 2019}}</ref>

Her work has been translated into Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Malayalam, Urdu and Vietnamese.<ref name="Atlantic 2007"/><ref name="Gao bio"/><ref name="Dartmouth bio"/> Her writing has also been included in many anthologies of fiction and essays.<ref name="Gao bio"/> She has regularly written a monthly column on culture in ''[[The Telegraph (India)|The Telegraph]]''.<ref name="Gao bio"/>

==Activism==
In 1995, with assistance from [[Indira Jaising]] and the [[Lawyers Collective]], Hariharan challenged the [[Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act]], which placed the mother of a child as the natural guardian "after" the father, as a violation of the right to equality guaranteed under Articles 14 and 15 of the Indian Constitution.<ref name="LII">{{cite web |title=Hariharan v. Reserve Bank of India |url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/women-and-justice/resource/githa_hariharan_v_reserve_bank_of_india |website=Legal Information Institute |date=January 1999 |publisher=[[Cornell University]] |access-date=30 August 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Fernandes |first1=Joeanna Rebello |title=It's sad we needed the law to tell us that the mother's a natural guardian: Githa Hiraharan |url=https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/all-that-matters/Its-sad-we-needed-the-law-to-tell-us-that-the-mothers-a-natural-guardian-Githa-Hariharan/articleshow/48033836.cms |access-date=30 August 2022 |work=[[Times of India]] |date=July 12, 2015}}</ref> The case, ''Hariharan v. Reserve Bank of India'' was filed with her husband also as a petitioner and led to a [[Supreme Court of India]] judgment protecting the rights of children and finding both the mother and father can be natural guardians of the child.<ref name="LII"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.indianbarassociation.org/sc-redefined-hindu-guardianship-law/|title=SC redefined Hindu Guardianship Law|website=Indian National Bar Association|language=en-US|access-date=2019-04-09}}</ref><ref name="Rajagopal 2019">{{cite news |last1=Rajagopal |first1=Bulbul |title='There is no one single authority in my stories': Githa Hariharan |url=https://www.thehindu.com/books/there-is-no-one-single-authority-in-my-stories-githa-hariharan/article26735107.ece |access-date=30 August 2022 |work=[[The Hindu]] |date=April 6, 2019}}</ref> The Supreme Court stated, "[the father] cannot be ascribed to have a preferential right over the mother in the matter of guardianship".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Masoodi |first1=Ashwaq |title=Five cases where courts have given secular laws precedence over personal codes |url=https://www.livemint.com/Politics/3ZthPR7wFkUljODEQlO46N/Five-cases-where-courts-have-given-secular-laws-precedence-o.html |access-date=1 September 2022 |work=[[Mint (newspaper)|Mint]] |date=March 1, 2016}}</ref>

== Bibliography ==

===Author===
*''The Thousand Faces of Night'', Penguin Books, 1992; Women's Press, 1996, {{ISBN|978-0-7043-4465-5}}
*''The Art of Dying'', Penguin Books, 1993, {{ISBN|978-0-14-023339-1}}
*''The Ghosts of Vasu Master'', Viking, Penguin Books India, 1994; Penguin Group, 1998, {{ISBN|978-0-14-024724-4}}
*''When Dreams Travel'', Picador, 1999, {{ISBN|978-0-330-37236-7}}; Penguin Group Australia, 2008, {{ISBN|978-0-14-320428-2}}
*''The Winning Team'', Illustrator Taposhi Ghoshal, Rupa & Co., 2004, {{ISBN|978-81-291-0570-7}}
*''In Times of Siege'', Pantheon Books, 2003, {{ISBN|978-0-375-42239-3}} {{ISBN|978-1-4000-3337-9}}
*''Fugitive Histories'', Penguin Group, 2009, {{ISBN|978-0-670-08217-9}}
*''Almost Home'', Restless Books, 2014, {{ISBN|978-1-632-06061-7}}
*''[[I Have Become the Tide]]'', Simon and Schuster India, 2019, {{ISBN|9-386-79738-0|}}
* ''Vēliyēt̲t̲amāyi ñān : nōval'', Mātr̥bhūmi Buks, 2020 {{ISBN|9789389869521}} (translated by Johny M. L. into [[Malayalam]])

===Editor===
*''A Southern Harvest'', Kath, 1993, {{ISBN|978-81-85586-10-6}}
*''Sorry, Best Friend!'', Illustrated Ranjan De, Tulika Publishers, 1997, {{ISBN|978-81-86895-00-9}}
*''Battling for India: A Citizen's Reader'', Speaking co-editor Salim Yusufji, 2019, Speaking Tiger, {{ISBN|9789388874182}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last1=Sidiquii |first1=Shehjad |title=Feminist Perspective in Githa Hariharan's Novels |date=2015 |publisher=RUT Printer and Publisher |isbn=9789384663063 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3SsEEAAAQBAJ}}
*{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=be7UXcV1kt4C&q=Githa+Hariharan| title=Mythology and Reality in Githa Hariharan's "The Thousand Faces of Night"| author=Kader Aki| publisher=GRIN Verlag| year= 2007| isbn= 978-3-638-76601-2 }}

==External links==
{{commons category|Githa Hariharan}}

*[http://www.githahariharan.com Official website]
*[http://www.curledup.com/githaint.htm An Interview with Githa Hariharan] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240205223257/https://www.curledup.com/githaint.htm |date=5 February 2024 }} Luan Gaines, Curled Up With a Good Book, 2003.
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV7h0jZ712M ''Githa Hariharan in Conversation with TM Krishna, Kerala Literature Festival 2016''], YouTube DC Books, 22 Feb 2016.
*''{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20190422075303/https://thetishmanreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Hariharan.pdf An Interview with Author Githa]}}'' Hariharan, Tishman Review, 2016.
*''[http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/indian-authors-femme-fatales-and-political-themes-stir-up-controversy/ Githa Hariharan Talks Indian Femme Fatales and Politics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201001005836/http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/indian-authors-femme-fatales-and-political-themes-stir-up-controversy/ |date=1 October 2020 }}'', Ploughshares, September 2016
*''[http://www.governancenow.com/views/interview/freedom-speech-an-index-maturity-a-society-author-githa-hariharan Freedom of speech is an index of maturity of a society: Author Githa Hariharan]'', Yoshika Sangal Governance Now, April 2017.
*[https://writersandfreeexpression.com/2017/07/14/we-are-talking-of-more-than-writers-rights-we-are-talking-of-letting-people-live-an-interview-with-githa-hariharan/ ''We are talking of more than writers’ rights; we are talking of letting people live''] An interview with Githa Hariharan, Laetitia Zecchini Writers and Free Expression, July 2017.
*''[https://www.newsclick.in/githa-hariharans-response-aniruddhan-vasudevan-declining-sahitya-akademi-prize-translation Githa Hariharan’s Response to Aniruddhan Vasudevan Declining the Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation]'', Newsclick, February 2018
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hariharan, Githa}}
[[Category:1954 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Fairfield University alumni]]
[[Category:People from Coimbatore]]
[[Category:University of Mumbai alumni]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian novelists]]
[[Category:Writers from New Delhi]]
[[Category:Indian women editors]]
[[Category:Indian editors]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian journalists]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian journalists]]
[[Category:Women writers from Tamil Nadu]]
[[Category:Journalists from Delhi]]
[[Category:Novelists from Tamil Nadu]]
[[Category:Journalists from Tamil Nadu]]
[[Category:Writers of mythic fiction]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian women novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century Indian women novelists]]

Githa Hariharan - Revision history

LucretiaGoldhar at 04:43, 29 April 2026