![]() The New Yorker magazine, where he had been a staff writer for 33 years, reported that Mehta died on Saturday. "He taught me to write about our own streets," Kumar wrote.NEW YORK : Celebrated Indian-American novelist Ved Mehta, who overcame blindness and became widely known as the 20th-century writer most responsible for introducing American readers to India, has died at his home here at the age of 86. In a tribute to Mehta on Twitter, writer Amitava Kumar recalled reading him as a student in Delhi. Mehta had a deep impact on generations of writers and reporters, especially on those who, like him, moved abroad and lived in exile (he became an American citizen in 1975 and was granted the MacArthur 'genius' grant in 1982). He dictated his drafts to (mostly women) assistants ( Spy magazine described them as "Vedettes" in an article in 1989) and is believed to have revised his books and articles often over a hundred times before publication. In spite of his see-sawing reputation, Mehta's devotion to his craft remained undiminished. The late Norman Mailer doubted his blindness, threatening to punch him into admitting that it was only an act-he never did. Later editors of New Yorker, like Tina Brown, begged to differ Mehta was fired after she took over the magazine in 1994.Īuthor of over two dozen books, Mehta was also accused of being misogynistic and patrician. "He writes about serious matters without solemnity, about scholarly matter without pedantry, about obscure matters without obscurity," he said about Mehta. Shawn, one of his early mentors, thought otherwise. In his 12-volume memoir Continents of Exile, published between 19, he wrote about his early life in India, his parents, relatives and the political landscape of the country since independence and Partition.Īlthough Mehta's prose was acclaimed internationally, especially for bringing India close to American readers, it was also criticised for being intensely self-indulgent, if not dull. He drew luminous portraits of Indian life in books like Walking the Indian Streets (1959) and Portrait of India (1970). His first book, Face to Face (1957), explored his struggles with blindness, which would become an abiding theme of his work. In fact, memoir would become Mehta's chosen form for most of his writing life, even though he was equally adept at journalism and also known as a novelist. In 1961, at the age of 26, Mehta was hired as a staff for the New Yorker by William Shawn, one of the legendary editors of the magazine, who was impressed by Mehta's early autobiographical pieces. He was eventually accepted by one in Arkansas, where he went on to study, followed by stints at Oxford and Harvard. Later, Mehta was sent off to Dehra Dun, where he learned Braille reading and touch typing, a skill that enabled him to apply to colleges for the blind in the US. His father, Amolak Ram Mehta, was determined to give him a decent education and sent him off to study in a school for the blind in Bombay (now Mumbai). ![]() He was 86.īorn in 1934 in Lahore, undivided India, Mehta was afflicted with blindness at the age of three due to cerebrospinal meningitis. Ved Mehta, an Indian-born writer best known for his multi-volume memoir, died in his home in New York on Saturday due to complications from Parkinson's disease, his wife Linn Cary Mehta said in a statement.
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