Rajendra Yadav was born in Agra, Uttar Pradesh on 28 August 1929. He received his early education at Agra, and later also studied at Mawana, Meerut. He graduated in 1949, and later completed his MA in Hindi at Agra University in 1951. His first novel was Pret Bolte Hain, published in 1951 and later retitled as Sara Akash in the 1960s. It was the first Hindi novel to try to shock orthodox Indian cultural traditions. It was adapted into a movie of the same title, Sara Akash, by Basu Chatterjee in 1969 and which along with Mrinal Sen's Bhuvan Shome, launched Parallel Cinema in Hindi. The films was shot the Yadav's ancestral home in Raja Ki Mandi, Agra. Ukhre Huey Log, his next novel, depicts the trauma of a couple arising out of socio-economic condition which forced them to desert the conventional path – and, still they failed to acclimatise themselves to a corrupt and devilish world. This novel envisages "living in" concept for the first time. He wrote two more novels, Kulta, and Shaah aur Maat. He also wrote several stories and translated into Hindi many works of Russian language writers like Turgenev, Chekhov, and Lermontov, as also Albert Camus. Ek Inch Muskaan, which Rajendra Yadav and wife Mannu Bhandari wrote together, is a love tragedy of schizophrenic individuals. Besides being a writer, Rajendra Yadav was also a nominated a board member of Prasar Bharti in 1999–2001. He was awarded Yash Bharati Samman of year 2013 by Government of Uttar Pradesh. Yadav died in New Delhi on 28 October 2013. He was 84 years old when he died. Before his death, he had been admitted to hospital as he was ailing.
Career
Writing
Yadav, along with fellow Hindi writers Kamleshwar and Mohan Rakesh was one of the early pioneers of the Nayi Kahani movement in Hindi literature. His early fiction focused on the lives of the middle class, and often touched upon political issues.
Editing
As editor of Hans, a monthly literary magazine in Hindi, Yadav encouraged writing on themes surrounding questions of inequality and poverty. In his editorials for Hans, he often wrote about issues concerning feminism and Dalit empowerment, and encouraged contributions to the magazine from Dalit and women writers. His frank style occasionally courted controversy and he was once the subject of litigation after statements made by him were alleged to offend religious sentiments. He was a strong advocate of freedom of expression and expressed the opinion that the refusal of Hindi writer-editors to publish good, but controversial, literature, had directly lead to the flourishing of little magazines that would publish such works.
Selected bibliography
DIXANT RANA hastag bhai bhai , 2006
NONU TONU , 2015
Ukhre Huey Log,
Kulta
Shaah aur Maat.
Strangers on the Roof, tr. by Ruth Vanita. 1994, Penguin,.
