Bapsi Sidhwa facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Bapsi Sidhwa
بیپسی سدھوا |
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Bapsi Sidhwa at the 2008 Texas Book Festival.
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| Born | 11 August 1938 Karachi, Bombay Presidency, British India |
| Died | 25 December 2024 (aged 86) Houston, Texas, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author |
| Nationality | Pakistani |
| Notable awards | Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) Award by the Government of Pakistan (1991) |
| Children | 5 |
| Relatives | Minocher Bhandara (brother) Isphanyar M. Bhandara (nephew) |
Bapsi Sidhwa (Urdu: بیپسی سدھوا; born August 11, 1938 – died December 25, 2024) was a famous Pakistani writer. She belonged to the Parsi community, who follow the Zoroastrian religion. She wrote her books in English and lived in the United States.
Bapsi Sidhwa is well-known for her work with filmmaker Deepa Mehta. Sidhwa's novel Ice Candy Man became the movie Earth in 1998. Her novel Water: A Novel was also made into the film Water in 2005. A documentary about her life, "Bapsi: Silences of My Life," was released in 2022.
Contents
Early Life and Challenges
Bapsi Sidhwa was born in Karachi, which was part of British India at the time. Her parents, Peshotan and Tehmina Bhandara, were also Parsi Zoroastrians. When she was about three months old, her family moved to Lahore.
At age two, Bapsi got polio, a disease that affected her throughout her life. She had to have several surgeries when she was young. Growing up, she also experienced the difficult time of the Partition of India. These experiences later influenced her writing.
Education and Family Life
Sidhwa earned her bachelor's degree from Kinnaird College for Women University in Lahore in 1957. Soon after, at 19, she got married and moved to Bombay (now Mumbai). She found it a bit shocking at first but soon connected with other Zoroastrians there.
Her first marriage ended after five years. She had a daughter and a son. She moved back to Lahore, but her son stayed in Mumbai. Due to strict border rules, she couldn't see him for many years. Later, she remarried in Lahore to Noshir, who was also a Zoroastrian. They had three more children. One of her children, Mohur Sidhwa, is involved in politics in Arizona.
Bapsi Sidhwa lived in Houston, USA. She called herself a "Punjabi-Parsi." Her first language was Gujarati, followed by Urdu, and then English. She wrote best in English but felt more comfortable speaking Gujarati or Urdu. She often translated ideas directly from those languages into English.
Bapsi Sidhwa passed away on December 25, 2024, in Houston, Texas, at 86 years old.
Teaching Career
After a special program at Harvard University, Bapsi Sidhwa started teaching at Columbia University. She taught writing to university students. At first, she found teaching challenging because she didn't have much experience.
After one term at Columbia, Sidhwa moved to Houston. She taught at the University of St. Thomas and later at Rice University. She also taught at other well-known universities like the University of Houston, Mount Holyoke College, and Brandeis University.
Recognitions and Awards
Bapsi Sidhwa received many important awards for her writing and contributions:
- Bunting Fellowship at Radcliffe/Harvard (1986)
- Visiting Scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation Center, Bellagio, Italy (1991)
- Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Excellence) Award (1991) – This is Pakistan's highest national honor in the arts.
- Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writer's Award (1994)
- Mondello Prize (Premio Mondello for Foreign Authors) for her novel Water (2007)
- Inducted into the Zoroastrian Hall of Fame (2000)
Her Books
The city of Lahore, Pakistan, where Bapsi Sidhwa grew up, is very important in many of her novels. Here are some of her well-known books:
- Their Language of Love (2013)
- Jungle Wala Sahib (Translation into Urdu) (2012)
- City of Sin and Splendour: Writings on Lahore (2006)
- Water: A Novel (2006)
- Bapsi Sidhwa Omnibus (2001)
- An American Brat (1993)
- Cracking India (1991) – This book was first published as Ice Candy Man in 1988.
- The Bride (1982) – This book was also published as The Pakistani Bride later on.
- The Crow Eaters (1978)
