Chandar Krishan

(also Krishan Chandar). Born Nov. 19, 1913, in Wazirabad; died Mar. 7,1977, in Bombay. Indian Urdu-language writer.

Krishan Chandar graduated from Farman Christian College in Lahore, in 1934. In 1953 he became secretary-general of the Association of Progressive Writers of India. In his short stories of the 1930’s and in his first novel, Defeat (Russian translation, 1958), he described events realistically while romantically idealizing reality. His later works reveal a more profound critical realism, and the novella When the Fields Awakened (1951; Russian translation, 1953), which describes an antifeudal peasant uprising in Telingana, contains features of socialist realism. His novella The Traitor and the short-story collection We Are Savages (1949) describe the partition of India in 1947.

In his novels, novellas, and short stories, Chandar dealt with topical issues of Indian reality, portraying the life of the peasants, the urban poor, and the artistic intelligentsia. He also published satirical works, such as the trilogy The Ass’s Adventure (1958–65) and the novellas The Children From Dadar Bridge (1958; Russian translation, 1973) and The Paper Boat (1966, Russian translation, 1972).