Usha Yadav

Usha Yadav is a Hindi writer and educationist who over five decades has written about 100 books of poetry, stories, novels, plays, biographies and reviews for children and adults. She was named for the Padma Shri in 2021 in the field of literature and education, from Uttar Pradesh ^[1].

Teacher

Yadav was born in Kanpur on 2 April 1946 ^[2]. She graduated from Agra University in 1962, took a PhD from Kanpur University in 1973 and a DLitt from Agra University in 1996 ^[2]. From 1978 to 2008 she taught at the K. M. Munshi Institute of Agra University and at the Kendriya Hindi Sansthan in Agra, guiding 18 PhD and 30 MPhil students ^[2]. Ten researchers have earned PhDs on her own work ^[2].

Writer

Selections of her writing are in government school textbooks in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh ^[2]. Her books take on superstition and dowry, the killing of girls before birth and so-called honour killings, inequality between men and women, harmony between communities, girls’ schooling and care for nature, along with the concerns of children and the elderly ^[2]. They have been broadcast on All India Radio and translated into Telugu, Assamese, Odia, Punjabi, Marathi and English ^[2].

Her novel Kaahe Ri Nalini, about the sexual exploitation of young girls, won the Madhya Pradesh Sahitya Academy’s Veer Singh Dev award for 2008 ^[2]. The Uttar Pradesh Hindi Sansthan gave her its Baal Sahitya Bharati award for children’s literature in 1998 ^[2].