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Preface
The essays collected in this book represent some of Mahadevi Varma’s most famous writings on the “woman question” in India. The collection also includes an introduction to her life with biographical notes, an analysis of her importance in the field of Hindi letters, as well as a selection of her poems—because Mahadevi made her mark on the world of Hindi literature through her poetry, and a book on her writings would be incomplete without them.
I have chosen to include essays that not only reflect Mahadevi’s ideas about the place of women in the home and the world during the nationalist period in India, but also articles that reveal her dreams and hopes for the future (and the past) of the Hindi–Urdu language. While many of these essays were written during the 1920s and 1930s when Mahadevi served as editor for the literary journal Chand, some of them appear to have been written much later, after India gained independence.
It is important to note that all the translators have tried to remain faithful to the Hindi, often keeping the syntax of the original Hindi. In some places, Mahadevi cites Sanskrit quotations that seem to serve as rhetorical and literary devices, to demonstrate her mastery of the Sanskrit