Kanhaiyalal Maneklal Munshi (1887-1971)

Major Gujarati novelist, playwright, essayist and social reformer. Worked briefly at Sagar where his scripts were a seminal generic influence on its reformist socials, esp. Dr Madhurika and Vengeance is Mine (both 1935, the latter based on his story Ver Ni Vasulat), feeding into Mehboob’s historicals. Early writings were reformist socials following in the wake of the most significant novelist in modern Gujarati, Govardhanram Tripathi (1855-1907). Became popular with historicals and period fables often set in the Solanki period (AD 961-1242): e.g. Patanant Prabhuta (1916), Gujarat No Natha (1917), Rajadhi Raja (1922). Author of the spectacularly successful historical Prithvi Vallabh (1920), filmed in the silent era by Manilal Joshi (1924) and later by Sohrab Modi (1943). In later years better known as a lawyer and politician, co-founding the rightwing Swatantra Party and briefly as a cabinet minister in the Congress.

Writer