Shobha De | |
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 De at an event in 2015 | |
| Born | Shobha Rajadhyaksha (1948-01-07)7 January 1948 (age 77) Satara District,Province of Bombay,Dominion of India (present-dayMaharashtra, India) |
| Occupation |
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| Spouse | Sudhir Vrajlal Kilachand Dilip De |
| Children | 6 |
Shobha De (néeRajadhyaksha, formerlyKilachand; born 7 January 1948) is an Indian novelist and columnist. She is best known for her depiction of socialites and sex in her works of fiction,[1] for which she has been referred to as the "Jackie Collins of India."[2][3]
Shobhaa De was born on 7 January 1948[4] inSatara district,Maharashtra and brought up inBombay (now Mumbai).[5] in aMarathi family.[6] Her father was a district court judge, and her mother was a home-maker.[1] The youngest of four siblings, she has two sisters and a brother.[2]
Shobha grew up in Mumbai, where she attendedQueen Mary School. She graduated fromSaint Xavier's College.[7]
At age 17, she began her career as a model,[1] which lasted for five years.[8] At age 20, she began her career as a journalist, writing "agony aunt" advice columns and features for society magazines.[2] She was the editor of the magazineStardust from 1995, which included Bollywood interviews, gossip, and photographs.[1][4]
In the 1980s, she contributed to the Sunday magazine section ofThe Times of India. She has since been a regular columnist for several newspapers.[4] She has also written several popular soaps on television.
Ankita Shukla wrote forThe Times of India, in 2016, that "unignorable has been Shobhaa De's unabashed description of the womenfolk in her novels. De's women range from traditional, subjugated and marginalized to the extremely modern and liberated women. De's novels take a leaf the urban life and represent realistically an intimate side of urban woman's life, also revealing her plight in the present day society."[9] In 1992, Mark Fineman of theLos Angeles Times described her as "India's hottest-selling English-language novelist," and how her second novel,Starry Nights (1991), had "a drawing of a nude woman on the front cover," and according to De, "they said it was the first time they’d broken through the ‘F’ barrier, the first time they’d run the F-word without asterisks."[2] Urmee Khan writes forThe Guardian in 2007, "Her books are steeped in a lifetime's observation of Bollywood," and "They describe a side of the country that western audiences rarely encounter, her central themes being power, greed, lust and sex."[1]
In 2010, De andPenguin Books created the publishing imprint Shobhaa De Books.[10]
De has also participated in several literary festivals, including the Bangalore Literature Festival,[8] having been part of it since its first edition.[11][better source needed]
De has married twice, is mother of six children and has six grandchildren.[2][12]
After graduation, Shobha married Sudhir Vrajlal Kilachand of the KilachandMarwari business family, with whom she has a son and a daughter.[2] The marriage ended in divorce.
Shobha then married Dilip De, aBengali businessman in the shipping industry, with whom she has two daughters.[2] Dilip also has two children from his previous marriage.[2][13][14]
UPDATED: March 22, 2012
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