Saros Cowasjee

{{Infobox academic

|birth_date={{Birth date|1931|07|12|df=y}}

|birth_place=Secunderabad, Hyderabad State, British India (now in Telangana, India)

|death_date={{Death date and age|2019|12|08|1931|07|12|df=y}}

|death_place=

|alma_mater=St. John's College, Agra (B.A.)
Agra College (M.A.)
University of Leeds (Ph.D.)

|doctoral_advisor=G. Wilson Knight

|workplaces=University of Regina

|occupation=Writer and professor

|citizenship=Canada}}

Saros Dara Cowasjee (12 July 1931 – 8 December 2019) was an Indian-born Canadian novelist, short story writer, commentator, critic, anthologist, and screenwriter, as well as a professor emeritus at University of Regina.

Early life and education

Cowasjee was born in Secunderabad, India on 12 July 1931, to Dara and Meher Cowasjee. He had a sister and a brother. He earned a B.A. from St. John's College, Agra in 1951. He completed a M.A. from Agra College in 1955. In 1960, Cowasjee completed a Ph.D. from University of Leeds. He researched Seán O'Casey under the supervision of G. Wilson Knight.{{Cite web|url=https://www.uregina.ca/library/assets/docs/pdf/finding_aids/2006_43.pdf|title=Saros Cowasjee|last=|first=|date=2007-02-16|website=University of Regina Archives and Special Collections: The Dr. John Archer Library|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}}{{cite book|title=Handbook of Twentieth-century Literatures of India|url=https://archive.org/details/handbooktwentiet00nata|url-access=limited|last=Vijayasree|first=C.|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=1996|isbn=9780313287787|editor-last1=Natarajan|editor-first1=Nalini|pages=[https://archive.org/details/handbooktwentiet00nata/page/n392 382]–397|chapter=Parsi Literature in English|editor-last2=Nelson|editor-first2=Emmanuel Sampath}}

Career

Cowasjee was an editor for two years with the Times of India Press in Bombay (now renamed Mumbai). In 1963, he joined the faculty of the University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus as an instructor of English. In 1971, he became a full-time professor. Upon retirement in 1995, Cowasjee became professor emeritus.{{Cite book|title=Perspectives on the Novels of Rohinton Mistry|last=Dodiya|first=Jaydipsinh|date=2006|publisher=Sarup & Sons|isbn=9788176257220|language=en}}

Cowasjee said "…I am a Canadian citizen, though my I sell much better in the U.K. and India than I do in Canada…. Perhaps my work lacks Canadian content and sensibility. Also, to be noticed in Canada one has to be an aggressive salesman, as aggressive as a Jehovah's Witness, and as prepared to take insults and get the door shut in one's face."O. P. Mathur. The Modern Indian English Fiction. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1993, p.204.

Personal life and death

Cowasjee was Parsi, a Zoroastrian community in India. He emigrated to Canada in 1963 and was a Canadian citizen.{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English|last1=King|first1=Bruce|last2=Narayan|first2=Shyamala A.|publisher=Routledge|year=2004|isbn=9781134468485|editor-last=Benson|editor-first=Eugene|pages=275–276|chapter=Cowasjee, Saros (1931-)}}{{cite book|title=Saskatchewan Writers: Lives Past and Present|publisher=University of Regina Press|year=2004|isbn=9780889771635|editor-last=Hodgson|editor-first=Heather|pages=61–63}} Cowasjee resided in Regina, Saskatchewan. He died on 8 December 2019, at the age of 88.{{cite web |title=Flag at Half Mast |url=https://lists.uregina.ca/sympa/arc/events/2020-01/msg00011.html |website=University of Regina |access-date=21 December 2023}}

Selected works

=As author=

Sean O'Casey, the Man Behind the Plays (1963);{{cite journal |last=Johnston |first=Denis |year=1965 |title=Sean O'Casey, the Man Behind the Plays by Saros Cowasjee (review) |journal=Modern Drama |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=344–345 |doi=10.1353/mdr.1965.0046|s2cid=190761681 }}
O'Casey (1966);
Stories and Sketches (1970);
Goodbye to Elsa (1974);{{cite journal |last=Murad |first=Orlene |year=1974 |title=Saros Cowasjee: Goodbye to Elsa |journal=International Fiction Review |pages=151–152 |url=https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/IFR/article/download/13076/14159}}
Mulk Raj Anand: Coolie : an assessment (1976);{{cite journal |last=Fisher |first=Marlene |year=2008 |title=Saros Cowasjee. Mulk Raj Anand. Coolie. An assessment. |journal=World Literature Written in English |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=378–379 |doi=10.1080/17449857708588480}}
Nude therapy (1978);
So Many Freedoms: A Study of the Major Fiction of Mulk-Raj Anand (1978);{{cite journal |last=Williams |first= Haydn M. |year=1980 |title=So Many Freedoms: Major Fiction of Mulk Raj Anand. By Saros Cowasjee. |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=411–412 |doi=10.2307/2054338|jstor= 2054338 |s2cid= 159712212 }}{{cite journal |author=S.M.A. |year=1978 |title=Reviewed Work: So Many Freedoms. A Study of the Major Fiction of Mulk Raj Anand by Saros Cowasjee |journal=Indian Literature |volume=21 |issue=5 |pages=127–129 |jstor=24158562}}
The last of the maharajas: A screen play based on Mulk Raj Anand's Private life of an Indian Prince (1980);
Suffer little children (1982);
Studies in Indian and Anglo-Indian Fiction (1993);
The Assistant Professor (1996).

=As editor=

Author to Critic: The Letters of Mulk Raj Anand to Saros Cowasjee (1973);
Modern Indian Short Stories (1982);
Stories from the Raj (1983);
More Stories from the Raj and After (1986);
Indigo by Christine Weston (1987, 1993);
The Wild Sweet Witch by Philip Mason (1989);
Women Writers of the Raj: Short Fiction (1990);
Four Raj Novels (Omnibus) (1994);
Orphans of the Storm: Stories on the Partition of India (1995);
The Best Short Stories of Flora Annie Steel by Flora Annie Steel (1995);
The Oxford Anthology of Raj Stories (1999).{{cite journal |last=Gerow |first=Edwin |year=2001 |title=Reviewed Work: The Oxford Anthology of Raj Stories. Edited by Saros Cowasjee. |journal=Journal of the American Oriental Society |volume=121 |issue=1 |page=165 |doi=10.2307/606779 |jstor=606779}} (JSTOR misreports the title because this is the second review on the same page)

=Introductions=

Private Life of an Indian Prince by Mulk Raj Anand (1970);{{cite journal |last=Nare |first=M. A. |year=2013 |title=A Closer Look at Mulk Raj Anand's Novel: Private Life of an Indian Prince and its Criticism |journal=Rock Pebbles |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=81–87 |url=http://www.rockpebblesindia.com/pdf/jan-mar2013.pdf#page=81}}
The Trilogy comprising The Village, Across the Black Waters and The Sword and the Sickle by Mulk Raj Anand (2016).{{cite journal |last=Kaur |first=Rajender |year=2018 |title=Mulk Raj Anand. The Trilogy comprising The Village, Across the Black Waters and The Sword and the Sickle |journal=South Asian Review |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=162–165 |doi=10.1080/02759527.2016.11978328|s2cid=166185619 }}