Mulk Raj Anand (1905–2004) was an Indian author, short story writer, and critic known for his realistic and tender portrayal of India’s poor. He is widely regarded, with R. K. Narayan, as one of the Indo-English novel’s founding fathers.
Born in Peshawar, now in Pakistan, Anand’s early life was fraught with tragedy and family problems. After graduating with honours in 1924 from Khalsa College, Amritsar, he left India for Great Britain. He was beaten up for blacklegging during the General Strike of 1926. He wrote books on South Asian culture, including Persian Painting (1930,) Curries and Other Indian Dishes (1932,) and The Hindu View of Art (1933.)
Anand completed his doctorate in Philosophy in 1929 with a dissertation on Bertrand Russell and the English empiricism. He became a devout Marxist after reading Karl Marx’s Three Letters on India (1853.) He taught evening classes about India’s poverty and the plight of its coolies and untouchables for London’s Workers Educational Association. Anand returned to India in 1945 and served as an art and literature professor at the University of Punjab.
Anand’s first novel, the proletarian Untouchable (1935,) was rejected by 19 publishers, the 20th agreeing to take it on if E. M. Forster would write a preface. Forster wrote the preface, setting off a remarkable career for Anand. His humanist novels, such as Coolie (1936,) Two Leaves and a Bud (1937,) and The Village (1939, the first of a trilogy,) depict life in poverty-stricken Punjab and expose the injustice of the caste system.
Anand later began an ambitious seven-volume autobiographical work of fiction, The Seven Ages of Man, of which four volumes appeared: Seven Summers (1951,) Morning Face (1968,) Confession of a Lover (1976,) and The Bubble (1984.) Anand also wrote short stories and critical essays on literature and art.
American literary scholar Margaret Berry wrote Mulk Raj Anand: The Man and The Novelist (1971.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Mulk Raj Anand
For, although he didn’t know it, to him work was a sort of intoxication which gave him a glowing health and plenty of easy sleep.
—Mulk Raj Anand
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