Pratibha Ray

Pratibha Ray (born in Alabol, Odisha, 1943) is an Indian academic and writer of novels and short stories in Odia. Her work matters for the way it links storytelling with questions of social equality and the place of women.

She was born in a remote village in the Jagatsinghpur district, then part of Cuttack district. She began writing at the age of nine, and her first novel, Barsha Basanta Baishakha (1974), sold very well. After marrying and raising three children, she combined writing with a long teaching career. She worked first as a school teacher and then taught for thirty years at government colleges in Odisha, where she also supervised doctoral research. Her stories take up social injustice. Some critics labelled her a communist and others a feminist, but she describes herself as a humanist.

Her activism led her to protest caste and religious discrimination at the Jagannath Temple in Puri, and she worked in the areas hit by the 1999 super cyclone. Yajnaseni (1984) earned her the Moortidevi Award in 1991, and in 2011 she received the Jnanpith Award. Her legacy lies in bringing debates about equality into Odia literature and in speaking as an Indian writer on international platforms.