Abraham Eraly (15 August 1934 — 8 April 2015) was an Indian writer of history, a teacher, and the founder of

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

-based magazine ''

Aside An aside is a dramatic device in which a character speaks to the audience. By convention, the audience is to realize that the character's speech is unheard by the other characters on stage. It may be addressed to the audience expressly (in charac ...

''.

Early life

Abraham Eraly was born in the village of Ayyampalli in

Ernakulam district Ernakulam, ; ISO: ''Eṟaṇākuḷaṁ'', in Malayalam: എറണാകുളം), is one of the 14 districts in the Indian state of Kerala, that takes its name from the eponymous city division in Kochi. It is situated in the central part ...

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South Ca ...

on 15 August 1934. He studied history at a college in

Ernakulam Ernakulam () is the Central Business District of the city of Kochi in Kerala, India and has lent its name to the Ernakulam district. Many major establishments, including the Kerala High Court, the office of the Kochi Municipal Corporation a ...

and followed it up with a postgraduate degree in the same subject at

Madras Christian College Madras Christian College (MCC) is a liberal arts and sciences college in Chennai, India. Founded in 1837, MCC is one of Asia's oldest extant colleges. The college is affiliated to the University of Madras but functions as an autonomous insti ...

in Chennai. He became a professor of history at MCC in 1971. Bored with the monotony of teaching, Eraly resigned his professorship in 1977 and founded the

-based magazine ''Aside'', India's first English-language city magazine. Following financial difficulties, it closed in 1997.

Literary career

Eraly's earliest publications were poems and short stories. Abraham Early in an interview with journalist and author, talks to Shreekumar Varma says: His historical writing career started while at Madras Christian College. Dissatisfied with the material he used to teach history, he began to write a series of books on Indian history. The ''Gem in the Lotus'' covered its earliest period, while ''The Last Spring'' continued the narration to the end of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

. Eraly's style of historical story-telling made him particularly approachable for non-historians but could also be used as a reliable source on the Mughal period in India.

Later life

In 2011, Eraly moved to

Pondicherry Pondicherry (), now known as Puducherry ( French: Pondichéry ʊdʊˈtʃɛɹi(listen), on-dicherry, is the capital and the most populous city of the Union Territory of Puducherry in India. The city is in the Puducherry district on the sout ...

, where he lived in Sarathambal Nagar. Abraham Eraly died at the

JIPMER The Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research (JIPMER) (originally known as ''L'Ecole de Médecine de Pondichéry'')is a medical school located at Pondicherry, the capital of the Union Territory of Puducherry, in Indi ...

hospital on 8 April 2015, following a paralytic attack.

Bibliography

Non-fiction

*
The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate
', 2014, Penguin UK, *
The First Spring: The Golden Age of India
', 2011, Penguin Books India, *
Gem In The Lotus: The Seeding Of Indian Civilisation
', 2002, Penguin UK, *
The Last Spring: The Lives and Times of Great Mughals
', 2000, Penguin UK, **
The Mughal Throne: The Saga of India's Great Emperors
', 2004, Phoenix **
The Mughal world : life in India's last golden age
', 2007, Penguin Books, Many of his books were divided and re-published under different names leading to multiple titles.
The Last Spring: The Lives and Times of Great Mughals
' was re-published in two parts:
The Last Spring Part I
' (alternatively known as
The Mughal Throne
' and
Emperors Of The Peacock Throne
') and
The Last Spring Part II
' (alternatively known as
The Mughal World
').

Fiction

*
Night of the Dark Tree: A Novel
', 2006, Penguin Books India, *
Tales Once Told: Legends of Kerala
', 2006, Penguin Books India,

References

External links

Abraham Eraly's articles for Outlook India
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eraly, Abraham Writers from Kochi 1934 births 2015 deaths People from Ernakulam district Indian editors 21st-century Indian historians 21st-century Indian novelists 20th-century Indian short story writers 20th-century Indian poets Poets from Kerala Scholars from Kerala Novelists from Kerala