Kamala Markandaya

Kamala Markandaya ( born June 23, 1924 in Mysore, † 16 May 2004, London) was an Indian writer and journalist.

Markandaya Kamala, Kamala actually Purnaiya Taylor was born as Kamala Purnaiya in Barain, a small town in the vicinity of Mysore in India in 1924. She studied history in Madras and worked as a journalist. In addition to this work, she wrote short stories. At the age of 25, she married Bertrand Taylor, a British journalist and immigrated in 1948 with him to Britain, where she lived until her death.

Since the 1950s, she wrote novels that have been translated into numerous languages. They often described the conflict in India between tradition and modernity.

Her first novel, Nectar in a sieve and established its literary reputation and is regarded as the foundation stone of the Indo-English women's literature. 1990 Kamala Markandaya was awarded for this work of LiBeraturpreis.

Works (selection)

• Nectar in a Sieve, novel, 1954 German: nectar in a sieve, translated by Trude Geissler and Gertrud Grote, Honest stone, Munich 1956; Union Verlag, Zurich 1986

• German: Beloved Stranger, Honest stone, Munich 1959

• German: A handful of rice, translated by Lisa Marie Countess of Saurma and Heinz Graef, Union Verlag, Zurich 1983

• German: Abstract as Innocence, translated by Thomas Brückner, in: poppies on black felt. Authors from four continents, Union Verlag, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-293-20108-3