Writer, Bhopal, India
Avril - Juin 2015
Madan SONI, Hindi writer, was born in India in 1951, in Sagar, Madhya Pradesh.
He has published four books of literary criticism, including Kavita ka Vyom aur Vyom ki Kavita (a critical study of post-sixties’ Hindi poetry), Vishyanter (a collection of critical essays), Kathapurush (a critical study of Nirmal Verma’s fiction) and Utpreksha (a collection of critical essays).
He has translated several texts from English to Hindi/Bundeli including Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare), Caucasian Chalk Circle (Brecht), Yerma (Lorca), Narrow Road to the Deep North (Edward Bond), Representations of the Intellectual (E. W. Said), The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco), The Square (Marguerite Duras) etc.
He edited many books including Prem ke Roopak (a selection of modern Hindi love poetry), and Poorvagrah (Quarterly magazine of literary criticism). Madan SONI received many awards including Nand Dulare Vajpeyi Puraskar, Devi Shankar Awasthi Puraskar, Raza Foundation Award and Senior Fellowship of Department of Culture, Government of India.
He has published a substantial number of essays and papers in many prestigious journals including Poorvagrah, Samar Hill IIAS Review, Samas, Samkalin Bhartiya sahitya, Bahuvachan, Hindi, Vasudha, Kathadesh, Sakshatkar, Dastavez, Pratilipi etc.
"Exploring the self-reflective properties of literature"
The enquiry of Madan SONI relates to the amorphous that which transforms a work in to literature. Call it moment, essence, or whatever, this is what inspires the abiding question: What is literature? The enquiry, then, moves into a particular, and less remarked realm to probe: What happens when the same question is asked by a creative writer? The proposition is actually larger than the verb ‘ask’ can suggest. For, a creative writer does not have to articulate the question to be impelled by it. It is always there, no matter what the level of its self-awareness. Indeed the question does not belong to the individual writer; it belongs to literature.
This essentially philosophical question, when asked by a creative writer as a creative writer, creates a dilemma. Arising from within the ‘Republic’ of literature, it exiles the writer into the ‘Republic’ of philosophy. Further, paradoxically, even as answers emerge, the question gets constantly renewed.
The enquiry will concentrate on select contemporary literary texts. It will, hopefully, effect an aesthetics across the different discursive traditions to define something universally called literature
SONI Madan. Kavita ka Vyom aur Vyom ki Kavita (Space of Poetry and Poetry of Space), Bhopal: Bharat Bhavan, 1986 (Poorvagrah Series)
SONI Madan. Vishyantar (Digression), New Delhi: Vani Prakashan, 1995
SONI Madan. Kathapurush (The Protagonist), Bikaner: Vagdevi Prakashan, 2000
SONI Madan. Utpreksha (Conjecture), Bikaner: Surya Prakashan Mandir, 2006