Bapsi Sidhwa is a Pakistani novelist of Gujarati Parsi Zoroastrian descent. She writes in English and resides in the United States. She was born on August 11, 1938, in Karachi, which was then part of British India. She belongs to the Parsi community, a small yet influential Zoroastrian minority in the region. She spent her childhood in Lahore, which became part of newly independent Pakistan during the Partition of 1947. She was two years old when she contracted polio.
Bapsi Sidhwa’s early life was marked by the turmoil and displacement of the partition, experiences that would deeply influence her later writing. She attended Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore, where she completed her BA. Her education played a crucial role in shaping her literary ambitions and provided a foundation for her future work.
Bapsi Sidhwa’s literary career began in earnest after her marriage and relocation to Bombay (now Mumbai), and later to the United States. Her first novel, The Crow Eaters, published in 1978, is a humorous yet poignant exploration of the Parsi community in colonial India.
Her most acclaimed work, Cracking India (originally published as Ice-Candy-Man in 1988), brought her international recognition. The novel is a powerful narrative of the partition of India, seen through the eyes of a young Parsi girl named Lenny. The book was later adapted into the film Earth by renowned director Deepa Mehta. Cracking India is celebrated for its vivid portrayal of the human cost of partition and its nuanced depiction of communal tensions.
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In addition to The Crow Eaters and Cracking India, Sidhwa has authored several other notable works, including “The Bride” (1983), which tells the story of a young woman’s struggle in rural Pakistan, and “An American Brat” (1993), a semi-autobiographical novel about a young Parsi girl’s cultural adjustment in the United States.
She was awarded the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, one of Pakistan’s highest civilian honours, in recognition of her literary achievements. She currently resides in Houston in the United States. She describes herself as a “Punjabi-Parsi”, with Gujarati as her first language, Urdu as her second, and English as her third. Bapsi Sidhwa has taught at several universities, including the University of Houston, Rice University, and Columbia University.