Shobha De ('' née'' Rajadhyaksha, formerly Kilachand; born 7 January 1948) is an Indian novelist and columnist. She is best known for her depiction of socialites and sex in her works of fiction, for which she has been referred to as the "
Jackie Collins
Jacqueline Jill Collins (4 October 1937 – 19 September 2015) was an English romance novelist and actress. She moved to Los Angeles in 1985 and spent most of her career there. She wrote 32 novels, all of which appeared on The New York Times B ...
of India."
Early life and education
Shobhaa De was born on 7 January 1948 in
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...
Brahmin
Brahmin (; sa, ब्राह्मण, brāhmaṇa) is a varna as well as a caste within Hindu society. The Brahmins are designated as the priestly class as they serve as priests (purohit, pandit, or pujari) and religious teachers (gur ...
family. Her father was a district court judge, and her mother was a home-maker. The youngest of four siblings, she has two sisters and a brother.
Shobha grew up in Mumbai, where she attended Queen Mary School. She graduated from Saint Xavier's College.
Career
At age 17, she began her career as a model, which lasted for five years. At age 20, she began her career as a journalist, writing "agony aunt" advice columns and features for society magazines. She founded the magazine ''Stardust'' at age 23, which included Bollywood interviews, gossip, and photographs.
In the 1980s, she contributed to the Sunday magazine section of ''
The Times of India
''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the third-largest newspaper in India by circulation and largest ...
''. She has since been a regular columnist for several newspapers. She has also written several popular soaps on television.
Ankita Shukla wrote for ''The Times of India'', in 2016, that "unignorable has been Shobhaa De's unabashed description of the womenfolk in her novels. De's women range from traditional, subjugated and marginalized to the extremely modern and liberated women. De's novels take a leaf the urban life and represent realistically an intimate side of urban woman's life, also revealing her plight in the present day society." In 1992, Mark Fineman of the ''
Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' described her as "India's hottest-selling English-language novelist," and how her second novel, ''Starry Nights'' (1991), had "a drawing of a nude woman on the front cover," and according to De, "they said it was the first time they’d broken through the ‘F’ barrier, the first time they’d run the F-word without asterisks." Urmee Khan writes for ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' in 2007, "Her books are steeped in a lifetime's observation of Bollywood," and "They describe a side of the country that western audiences rarely encounter, her central themes being power, greed, lust and sex."
In 2010, De and
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.
De has also participated in several literary festivals, including the Bangalore Literature Festival, having been part of it since its first edition.
Personal life
Shobha has married twice, and has often said that she is the mother of six children, which includes two step-children.
Directly after graduation, Shobha married Sudhir Vrajlal Kilachand, of the Kilachand Marwadi business family. They quickly became the parents of two children, a son, Aditya Kilachand, and a daughter, Avantika. The marriage ended in divorce.
Shobha then married Dilip De, a businessman in the shipping industry, and a Bengali. This was Dilip's second marriage also, and he has two children by his previous marriage. Shobha and Dilip De became the parents of a further two daughters, Arundhati and Anandita.
Books
* ''Srilaaji – Diary of a Marwari Matriarch'', Simon & Schuster (2020)
* ''Lockdown Laisons'' (2020)
* ''Small Betrayals'' − Hay House India, New Delhi, 2014
* ''Seventy And to Hell With It'' (2017)
* ''Shobhaa: Never a Dull De'' − Hay House India, New Delhi, 2013
* ''Shethji'' −2012
* ''Shobhaa at Sixty'' −Hay House India, New Delhi, 2010
* ''Sandhya's secret'' −2009
* ''Superstar India'' – From Incredible to Unstoppable
* '' Strange Obsession''
* ''Snapshots''
* ''Spouse: The truth about marriage'' (2005)
* '' Speedpost'' – Penguin, New Delhi. 1999.
* '' Surviving Men'' – Penguin, New Delhi, 1998
* '' Selective Memory'' – Penguin, New Delhi. 1998.
* '' Second Thoughts'' – Penguin, New Delhi. 1996.
* '' Small betrayals'' – UBS Publishers' Distributors, 1995
* '' Shooting from the hip'' – UBS, Delhi, 1994.
* '' Sultry Days'' – Penguin, New Delhi. 1994.
* ''Sisters'' – Penguin, New Delhi. 1992.
* '' Starry Nights'' – 1989, India, Penguin, New Delhi , Pub date ? ? 1989, paperback
* '' Socialite Evenings'' – 1989, India, Penguin, New Delhi , Pub date ? ?
List of Indian writers
This is a list of notable writers who come from India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countri ...