Biography of Hindi literary giant Agyeya to release in July

A new book on the life and times of one of the foremost figures of Hindi literature Sachchidanand Hirananda Vatsyayan, popularly known as 'Agyeya', will hit the stands in July, announced Penguin Random House India (PRHI) on Tuesday.

''Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives of Agyeya'', to be published under PRHI's 'Vintage' imprint, is the story of Agyeya's journey from ''being a revolutionary youth to becoming a highly controversial patron-saint of Hindi literature''.

The book is written by Akshaya Mukul, who earlier authored multiple award-winning ''Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India'' in 2015.

Agyeya, who died in 1987, was instrumental in pioneering modern trends in the realm of poetry, fiction, criticism and journalism. He had even joined the movement for India's independence along with the likes of freedom fighters Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad, and was arrested by the British authorities. ''In the book, I have attempted to take an unflinching view of Agyeya's public, private and secret lives.. It is the literary history of Hindi from colonial times to Nehruvian India and beyond. Agyeya's civilisational enterprise and the Hindi world's factional fights are as thrilling as the times he lived in,'' said Mukul.

Agyeya's monumental novel ''Shekhar: Ek Jeevani'', widely regarded as his masterpiece, was drawn from his own experiences in prison. He has also won the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Jnanpith Award for his poetry.

Based on never-before-seen archival research -- including a mammoth trove of private papers and colonial records of his years in jail -- the story spans landscapes stretching from British jails, an intellectually robust Allahabad and modern-day Delhi to monasteries in Europe, the homes of Agyeya's friends in the Himalayas, and universities in the US.

Through Ageya's life story, the readers will also get a rare peek into the history of the Hindi literary world of the 20th century and the ''factionalism, squabbling, pettiness and ambition found in it'', the publishers said.

''Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover is about Agyeya, of course -- and a more fascinating subject for a biographer may be hard to find -- but it is also an incredibly intimate view of the people around him, and in particular of the Hindi literary establishment. We are proud to be publishing this book,'' Elizabeth Kuruvilla, executive editor at PRHI.

The book's Hindi translation is slated to release next year under PRHI's 'Hindi Pocket Book' imprint.

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