Books & Authors Quiz: Famous Autobiographies and Biographies

The correct answer is B, Mahatma Gandhi. The Story of My Experiments with Truth is the autobiography of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, written originally in Gujarati and later translated into English. It covers his childhood, his years as a student in London, his work in South Africa and the shaping of his ideas on truth and non violence, and it stops well before the final phase of the national movement.

Option A, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote An Autobiography, published in Britain as Toward Freedom, besides The Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History. Option C, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, wrote India Wins Freedom, an account of the last years before independence and of partition. Option D, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, did not write an autobiography; his letters and speeches were published in collected volumes by others after his death.

The correct answer is A, Arun Tiwari. Wings of Fire was written by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam with Arun Tiwari, a scientist who had worked under Kalam in the missile programme. The book describes Kalam's boyhood at Rameswaram, his training as an aeronautical engineer and his years with the space and defence establishments.

Option B, Y. S. Rajan, did collaborate with Kalam but on a different book, India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium, so he is the most plausible distractor in the set. Option C, Sanjaya Baru, wrote The Accidental Prime Minister about his years as media adviser to Manmohan Singh and has no connection with Kalam's books. Option D, Robert Kanigel, is the American writer who wrote The Man Who Knew Infinity, the biography of Srinivasa Ramanujan.

The correct answer is C, The Man Who Knew Infinity. The book was written by Robert Kanigel about the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, so the writer and the subject are two different people, which makes it a biography. Ramanujan himself left no account of his life, and the book was built from letters, records and the recollections of those who knew him.

Option A, Long Walk to Freedom, was written by Nelson Mandela about his own life and is therefore an autobiography. Option B, Playing It My Way, is the cricketer Sachin Tendulkar's own account of his career and is likewise an autobiography. Option D, Wings of Fire, was written by A. P. J. Abdul Kalam with the help of Arun Tiwari, but the life described is Kalam's own, so the presence of a co-author does not turn it into a biography.

The correct answer is A, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad. India Wins Freedom is Azad's account of the last decade of the freedom struggle, of the Cabinet Mission and of the events that led to partition. Azad was president of the Indian National Congress during a crucial period and later became the first education minister of independent India.

Option B, Rajendra Prasad, wrote his own autobiography and books such as India Divided, but not this title. Option C, Jawaharlal Nehru, wrote An Autobiography, The Discovery of India and Glimpses of World History, all of them separate works. Option D, Subhas Chandra Bose, wrote An Indian Pilgrim, an unfinished autobiography, and The Indian Struggle, a political history of the movement, so neither matches the book named in the question.

The correct answer is C, Sachin Tendulkar. Playing It My Way is the autobiography of Sachin Tendulkar and was published shortly after he retired from international cricket. It covers his boyhood in Mumbai, his coaching under Ramakant Achrekar and his long career for India.

Option A, Kapil Dev, wrote Straight from the Heart, which deals with the 1983 World Cup victory among other events of his career. Option B, Sunil Gavaskar, wrote Sunny Days, and also Idols and Runs n Ruins, so he is a frequent name in the same question set. Option D, Rahul Dravid, has not written an autobiography of this name; the books associated with him were written by others about his career, which is exactly the distinction between autobiography and biography that the question is testing.

The correct answer is B, Sanjaya Baru. Sanjaya Baru served as media adviser to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and wrote The Accidental Prime Minister as an insider's account of those years. Because it is written by an observer rather than by the subject, the book is counted as a memoir about Manmohan Singh and not as his autobiography.

Option A, Manmohan Singh, did not write the book, and assuming that he did is the mistake the question is designed to catch. Option C, Daman Singh, is his daughter and wrote Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan, a family account of her parents, which is a different book altogether. Option D, Natwar Singh, wrote his own memoir One Life Is Not Enough, which deals with his career in the foreign service and in politics.

The correct answer is B, Anne Frank. The Diary of a Young Girl is the diary kept by Anne Frank while her family was in hiding in Amsterdam during the Second World War. She died in a concentration camp, and the diary was published afterwards by her father, the only member of the family to survive, which is why the question mentions posthumous publication.

Option A, Helen Keller, wrote The Story of My Life, her own account of learning to communicate despite being deaf and blind from infancy. Option C, Malala Yousafzai, wrote I Am Malala, about the attack on her in the Swat valley and her campaign for the education of girls. Option D, Pearl S. Buck, was a novelist best known for The Good Earth, a work of fiction set in China and not a diary.

The correct answer is D, India Divided. India Divided was written by Rajendra Prasad, who later became the first President of India, and it examines the demand for partition and the arguments made on either side. It does not belong to the Nehru list at all.

Option A, The Discovery of India, was written by Nehru during his imprisonment at Ahmednagar Fort and surveys the long history of Indian civilisation. Option B, Glimpses of World History, is the collection of letters he wrote from prison to his daughter Indira, sketching the history of the world. Option C, Toward Freedom, is the title under which his An Autobiography was published in Britain, so it is the same book under another name and is very much his.

The correct answer is B, Mary Kom. Unbreakable is the autobiography of the boxer Mary Kom from Manipur, and it describes her early life in a farming family, her training, her world championship titles and her return to the ring after becoming a mother.

Option A, Sania Mirza, wrote Ace Against Odds, a book about her tennis career written with her father and a journalist. Option C, P. T. Usha, the sprinter who narrowly missed an Olympic medal at Los Angeles in 1984, is not the author of this title. Option D, Saina Nehwal, is the subject of Playing to Win, an account of her badminton career, so all three distractors are real sporting names attached to different books, which is how such questions are built.

The correct answer is A, Walter Isaacson. Walter Isaacson wrote the authorised biography of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, after a long series of interviews with him. Isaacson is known for biographies of exceptional individuals and has also written lives of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, which is a useful link to remember.

Option B, Robert Kanigel, wrote The Man Who Knew Infinity about Srinivasa Ramanujan and has no connection with the Apple founder. Option C, Katherine Frank, wrote Indira: The Life of Indira Nehru Gandhi, a biography of the Indian prime minister. Option D, Ramachandra Guha, is an Indian historian whose works include India After Gandhi and a two part life of Mahatma Gandhi, so he too writes biography but not this one.

The correct answer is A, Omprakash Valmiki. Joothan is the autobiography of Omprakash Valmiki and is regarded as a landmark of Dalit writing in Hindi. It records the humiliations of caste that the writer faced in school and at work, and the title itself refers to the leftover food that his community was expected to accept.

Option B, Premchand, was a novelist and short story writer whose works include Godan, Gaban and Nirmala, all fiction rather than autobiography. Option C, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, was a poet best known for Madhushala, and he did write a multi volume autobiography beginning with Kya Bhoolun Kya Yaad Karun, but not this book. Option D, Phanishwar Nath Renu, wrote the novel Maila Anchal, a work of regional fiction set in rural Bihar, and he is remembered for that novel rather than for any autobiography.