Shiv Prasaad Singh (19 August 1928 – 28 September 1998) was an Indian writer, university professor and scholar of the

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

language. He is well-known for writing novels, short stories and critiques in

. He was formerly a professor of

Hindi literature Hindi literature ( hi, हिन्दी साहित्य, translit=hindī sāhitya) includes literature in the various Hindi language which have writing systems. Earliest forms of Hindi literature are attested in poetry of Apabhraṃ� ...

Benares Hindu University Banaras Hindu University (BHU) IAST: kāśī hindū viśvavidyālaya International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: /kaːʃiː hɪnd̪uː ʋɪʃwəʋid̪jaːləj/), is a Collegiate university, collegiate, Central university (India), central, and Re ...

. He received the

Kendra Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

in 1990 for his novel ''Neela Chand''.

Biography

Shiv Prasaad Singh was born into a peasant family in the village of

Jalalpur Jalalpur is a town, tehsil and a municipal board in Ambedkar Nagar district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Geography Jalalpur is located at . It has an average elevation of . The city is directly connected to Azamgarh, Akbarp ...

in the

Benares district Varanasi district is a district in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, with Varanasi city as the district headquarters. It is surrounded by Mirzapur district, Jaunpur district, Ghazipur district, Chandauli district, and Bhadohi district ...

of United Provinces. His schooling was done at Uday Pratap College,

Benares Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic tr ...

. He continued his education at

from where he obtained his BA, MA and PhD degrees. He started his career as a lecturer in Banaras Hindu University in 1953 and retired from there as a professor in 1988.

Legacy

''His most important work is Neela Chand, published in 1990.'' This book won several awards, such as the

in 1990, the Sharda Samman, the Vyas Samman, etc. It is the second part of his Kashi Trilogy which was inspired by Lawrence Durrell’s ''The Alexandria Quartet''. ''Vaishwanar'' and ''Gali Age Mudti Hai'' are the first and third parts respectively of the same series. In the book ''Cultural Landscapes and the Lifeworld: Literary Images of Benares'', Rana P. B. Singh states that ''Neela Chand'' "highlights the integrity of landscape with the culture." The third novel in the series, ''Gali Age Mudti Hai'', that was the first to be published in 1967, put Singh at the forefront of city-fiction writers in Hindi. He was already being acclaimed for his technical experimentation in his short story ''Daadi Maa''. His novel made his position and voice stronger. This novel is frankly modern, and its protagonist, Anand, is a "

flâneur () is a French noun referring to a person, literally meaning "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", or "loafer", but with some nuanced additional meanings (including as a loanword into English). is the act of strolling, with all of its acco ...

" who also happens to be the writer's alter ego. This novel portrays various times and colours of the city of Varanasi lovingly and in detail.

Works

* ''Vaishwanar'' (2004) * ''Uttaryogi Shri Arvind'' (2008) * ''Neela Chand'' (2010) * ''Gali Age Mudti Hai'' (2010) * ''Dadi Maa'' (2011) * ''Alag Alag Vaitarni'' (2015)

Awards and recognitions

* Vyas Samman * Sharda Samman

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Singh, Shiv Prasaad 1928 births 1998 deaths Banaras Hindu University alumni Academic staff of Banaras Hindu University Hindi-language writers Indian male writers Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Hindi