Susham Bedi
| Susham Bedi | |
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Susham Bedi, Indian American novelist, actress, and academic
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| Born |
July 1, 1945 Firozpur, Punjab, India |
| Occupation | Novelist, actress, academic |
Susham Bedi (born July 1, 1945) is an Indian author of novels, short stories and poetry, currently living in the United States. She was a professor of Hindi language and literature at the department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) at Columbia University, New York. She writes predominantly about the experiences of Indians in the South Asian diaspora, focusing on psychological and 'interior' cultural conflicts. Unlike other prominent Indian American novelists she writes mainly in Hindi rather than in English. She has been widely translated into English, French, Dutch and other languages by artists, academics, and students.
She was an actress in India in the 1960s and early 1970s. More recently in the United States she has appeared on such shows as True Crime: New York City, Third Watch, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and in movies such as The Guru (2002) and ABCD (1999). She is the mother of the actress Purva Bedi.
In 2007 she was awarded 100,000 rupees by Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan for her contributions to Hindi language and literature.
In January 2006 she was honored by Sahitya Academy in Delhi for her contributions to Hindi literature.
Susham Bedi began her writing career in high school and college, entering local competitions and writing articles and stories for magazines. She also worked as an actress and commentator on Indian television in the late-1960s and 1970s.
She attended Delhi University and Panjab University in India and taught Hindi literature. Her PhD dissertation was published in 1984 as Innovation and Experimentation in Contemporary Hindi Drama by Parag publications in India.
From 1974 to 1979 she wrote for The Times of India as one of their correspondents from Brussels, Belgium. In 1979 she came to the United States with her husband.
Susham Bedi has been involved in exploring questions of identity, authenticity, and transformation, in her cultural criticism and academic work, and these themes are reflected as well in her fiction writing. She is the author of eight major Hindi language novels, as well as collections of Hindi short stories and poetry. These have been widely translated and have been the subject of academic dissertations and debates on the South Asian diaspora experience.
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