Who is the author of 'That Long Silence'?

"That Long Silence" is a novel by Shashi Deshpande, published in 1988. It won the Sahitya Akademi Award for English in 1990.

About the novel:

It is narrated by Jaya, an educated middle-class housewife in Bombay, who is also a writer.

When her husband Mohan is suspected of financial malpractice at work, they move to a small flat to hide for a while. During this time, Jaya looks back on her life and her marriage.

She realises that she has spent years keeping silent and suppressing her own thoughts and desires to fit the role of the "ideal" wife and mother.

The novel explores the inner lives of Indian women, their silence in marriage and family, and their search for identity.

It is regarded as an important feminist novel in Indian English literature.

About Shashi Deshpande:

She was born in 1938 in Dharwad, Karnataka. Her father, Sriranga (Adya Rangacharya), was a well-known Kannada playwright and Sanskrit scholar.

She studied economics and law, and later journalism.

Her other works include "The Dark Holds No Terrors" (1980), "Roots and Shadows" (1983), "The Binding Vine" (1993), "Small Remedies" (2000), "Shadow Play" and her memoir "Listen to Me" (2018).

She received the Padma Shri in 2009.

In 2015, she resigned from the General Council of the Sahitya Akademi in protest against its silence over the killing of the Kannada scholar M. M. Kalburgi.

Other Indian women writers in English:

• Nayantara Sahgal: "Rich Like Us".
• Anita Nair: "Ladies Coupé" (2001).
• Manju Kapur: "Difficult Daughters" (1998), which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.
• Kamala Das: "My Story".

Why not the other options?

• ✗Nayantara Sahgal wrote "Rich Like Us".
• ✗Anita Nair wrote "Ladies Coupé".
• ✗Manju Kapur wrote "Difficult Daughters".