Shama Futehally Biography and latest books by Shama Futehally

Shama Futehally was a writer par excellence. Her novels addressed grave political issues. Though she taught western drama her translations of Hindi and Urdu poetry have been super popular. She has authored novels like Tara Lane, Reaching Bombay Central, In the Dark of the Heart.


Shama Futehally studied at Bombay and Leeds, England. She was often compared to contemporaries Shashi Deshpande and Githa Hariharan. However, there was more to Futehally’s works. She was also an adept translator. She believed that to be a writer in India, you had to live in two worlds, in two languages. And translating was a step to bridge the two worlds. In fact, when she began work on translating Meerabai’s poetry (In the Dark of the Heart: Songs of Meera), she worked on her Hindi so that she could understand the timeless poems at all levels.


Shama wrote about topics that Indians could identify with. In both Tara Lane and Reaching Bombay Central she unlike most Indian Writing in English, did not work towards acquainting India to the westerners, but she reminded her readers of common everyday things that were lost somewhere in the recesses of memory. In her writing, there were moments of drama and moments of deep reflection.


Shama also contributed shorter pieces for newspapers and magazines. Along with writing she also taught western drama at Delhi’s National School of Drama. She married Jawid Chowdhury, an IAS officer, and had two children from him.