The rights of tribal people, the lives of ordinary workers and the depiction of female desire were amongst the themes explored by the writer Mahasweta Devi. Born in Dhaka in 1926, she attended the school established by Rabindranath Tagore and before her death in 2016 she had published over 100 novels and 20 collections of short stories. Sindhubala is one such story, which traces the tale of a woman made to become a healer of children and for New Generation Thinker Preti Taneja, Mahasweta's writing offers a way of using language to explore ideas about power, freedom and feminism.

Preti Taneja is the author of the novel We That Are Young and the non fiction book Aftermath. She teaches at Newcastle University and is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.
You can find other Essays by Preti available on the Radio 3 website including one looking at Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001kpc
Creating Modern India explores the links between Letchworth Garden City and New Delhi https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08j9x3h
You can also find her discussing Global Shakespeare and different approaches to casting his plays in this Free Thinking playlist on Shakespeare https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06406hm
And a Free Thinking interview with Arundhati Roy about translation https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b5hk01

Producer: Torquil MacLeod Show less