Interview with Manoranjan Byapari, winner of The Hindu Non-fiction Prize 2018
5 years, 11 months ago

Interview with Manoranjan Byapari, winner of The Hindu Non-fiction Prize 2018

The Hindu  

Manoranjan Byapari is the first Dalit writer of Bengal, whose book Interrogating My Chandal Life — An Autobiography of a Dalit, won The Hindu Prize 2018 in the non-fiction category, an award he shared with his translator, Sipra Mukherjee, Professor of English in West Bengal State University. His is an unusual life story of a convict turned rickshaw-wala turned cook turned novelist, whose life changed because of a chance meeting with Mahasweta Devi. Meenakshi Mukherjee translated one of my essays, ‘Is there a Dalit writing in Bangla?’ for Economic and Political Weekly and that too shot me into prominence. And that is how I came upon Byapari’s book, which was one that deserved a far larger audience than it was getting.

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History of this topic

Review of Manoranjan Byapari’s The Nemesis, the second in his ‘Chandal Jibon’ trilogy: a story of hunger and politics
1 year, 10 months ago

Review of Manoranjan Byapari’s The Nemesis, the second in his ‘Chandal Jibon’ trilogy: a story of hunger and politics

The Hindu  

Rickshaw puller-turned author-turned politician Manoranjan Byapari’s writing teems with vivid descriptions of poverty, squalor, the helplessness of the poor and the working class, the precarity of being a refugee or a person displaced for political reasons, and the machinations of politicians. My introduction to Byapari’s writing came via Facebook some five or six years ago when translator Arunava Sinha would …

Manoranjan Byapari: ‘My journey has just begun’
3 years, 3 months ago

Manoranjan Byapari: ‘My journey has just begun’

The Hindu  

HE found his destiny on wheels. In 2018, when he won The Hindu Award for Non-Fiction for his book Interrogating My Chandal Life, he had just lost his job and was not sure where his next meal would come from. “People who would not come near a jahil garib aadmi started coming to see me and talk to me with …

Manoranjan Byapari: ‘I haven’t written my best story yet’
4 years, 10 months ago

Manoranjan Byapari: ‘I haven’t written my best story yet’

Deccan Chronicle  

On the sidelines of the Jaipur Literature Festival, Manoranjan Byapari tells Sucheta Dasgupta all about what informs his craft, why he would like a break from the school kitchen and what it takes to become a writer of stories. I have lived many lives in one, and I drew on them all to write my novel, Chhera Chhera Jeebon. If …

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