One of twentieth century best-known Indian writers and a major voice against social injustices, Mulk Raj Anand brought the Hindi heartland alive for English readers as few others have managed.

Best known for his novel Coolie, which was made famous by the film of the same name, Anand is amongst the trio who established Indians writing in English outside Bengal.

Mulk Raj Anand was born in Peshawar in 1905. After college education in Amritsar, he studied literature at Panjab University, passing out in1924 with honours. Eager to study further, he went to Cambridge, where he completed his PhD in 1929, becoming amongst the rarest of Indians to get the degree at that time.

A file image of the writer, who is recognised as one of the most important voices that highlighted the condition of India's toiling masses at a global level.

Post Second World War, Anand  returned to India to make Mumbai (then Bombay) his base. He joined Kutub Publishing Company and also founded the arts magazine Marg. A fine academic, he taught at several Indian universities over the next decade-and-a-half, including the university he studied in as a student.

Anand began writing professionally during his years in England, though he had displayed an interest even earlier. Fortunate in having as contemporaries a number of authors who would rise to world renown soon after, eg E.M. Forster, Henry Miller and George Orwell, Anand's literary output too became more visible. Forster in fact would go on to write a long preface to Untouchables. It was Gandhi however who became a major influence, which would last a lifetime.

Multifaceted and Sensetised

While his earliest published writings were non-fiction, largely on fine arts, his first novel to be noticed was Untouchables (1935). Coolie followed the year after, and together these two novels saw him being recognized as one of the most important voices of Indian literature and emerging consciousness. Two Leaves and a Bud (1937) followed and Anand began to be counted, along with RK Narayan and Raja Rao as giving voice to the proletariat and their struggles. Unsparing in his comments, he was critical both of the centuries old caste system and the extremes under the British imperial rule, which had accentuated the suffering to unprecedented degrees. He wrote of the marginalized, bringing forth uncomfortable truths about the societal structure. Multifaceted, he continued teaching and writing on a variety of subjects through his life. Always prolific, the next few years saw the publication of a very significant trilogy, - The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1940), and The Sword and the Sickle (1942), possibly an even more strident protest against social malpractices prevalent in India. He has also been working on a massive autobiographical project, parts of which have already been published. An eager enthusiast of promoting fine arts, he was appointed chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi in 1970. he also became the president of the Delhi-based Lokayata Trust, another cultural hub. Among the awards he has received are the Padma Bhushan and Sahitya Akademi Awards. He has also received the International Peace Prize from the World Peace Council. His works have been translated into several languages.

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