Books & Authors Mixed Quiz: Set 8

The correct answer is A, Dhanpat Rai Srivastava. He first published under the name Nawab Rai and then took the pen name Premchand, under which he wrote Godan, Gaban, Nirmala, Sevasadan, Rangbhoomi and Karmabhoomi, and stories such as Kafan, Panch Parmeshwar and Bade Ghar ki Beti. Option B, Suryakant Tripathi, is the real name behind another pen name, Nirala, one of the four poets of Chhayavad. Option C, Sachchidanand Hiranand Vatsyayan, is the real name of Agyeya, who edited Tar Saptak and began the Prayogvad movement. Option D, Ayodhya Singh Upadhyay, wrote under the name Hariaudh and is remembered for Priya Pravas. All four options are genuine name-and-pen-name pairs, and papers ask any one of them, so learn the set together rather than Premchand alone.

The correct answer is B, NR Narayana Murthy. A Better India: A Better World was written by N R Narayana Murthy, the co-founder of Infosys, and published in 2009. The book collects his lectures and talks to students and business audiences, and argues that India will improve only through honest institutions, respect for public money and what he calls compassionate capitalism, in which business creates jobs and pays its taxes rather than seeking favours. Narayana Murthy started Infosys in 1981 with six colleagues and a small sum borrowed from his wife Sudha Murty. A is wrong because Shashi Tharoor wrote An Era of Darkness and The Great Indian Novel. C is wrong because Ratan Tata has not written such a book, though several biographies of him exist. D is wrong because Gurcharan Das wrote India Unbound and The Difficulty of Being Good. Exam tip: Narayana Murthy, Infosys, A Better India A Better World, 2009.

The correct answer is B, Priyanka Chopra Jonas. Unfinished, published in 2021, is her memoir, written in English, and it recounts her school years in India and the United States, her win at a beauty pageant and her move from Hindi films to work abroad. The title itself signals a life the writer regards as still in progress.

Option A, Alia Bhatt, has not written a memoir, and no such book stands in her name. Option C, Deepika Padukone, is likewise not an author, though she is often placed in these options because she belongs to the same set of leading actors. Option D, Katrina Kaif, has also written no memoir. In a question of this kind only one of the four names has actually published a book, and here the book and the name are tied by the word Unfinished.

The correct answer is C, Satyameva Jayate. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya popularised the slogan Satyameva Jayate, meaning truth alone triumphs, and it was later adopted as the national motto of India. The line comes from the Mundaka Upanishad, and it is written in Devanagari on the abacus of the Lion Capital of Ashoka, which India adopted as the State Emblem in January 1950. Malaviya founded Banaras Hindu University in 1916, edited the newspaper Abhyudaya, served four terms as president of the Congress and was given the Bharat Ratna in 2015. A is wrong because Vande Mataram was written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and appears in his novel Anandamath. B is wrong because Jai Jawan Jai Kisan was Lal Bahadur Shastri's slogan, raised during the 1965 war. D is wrong because Inquilab Zindabad was popularised by the poet Hasrat Mohani and used by Bhagat Singh. Exam tip: Satyameva Jayate, from the Mundaka Upanishad, popularised by Malaviya, India's national motto.

The correct answer is D, Jaishankar Prasad. Kamayani is his long poem built on the figures of Manu, Shraddha and Ida, and it is held to be the highest achievement of Chhayavad; Prasad also wrote the plays Skandagupta and Chandragupta and the collection Ansu. The other three options are the remaining poets of the same movement, which is what makes the question worth asking. Option A, Nirala, wrote Ram ki Shakti Puja, Saroj Smriti, Anamika and Parimal. Option B, Sumitranandan Pant, wrote Pallav and Chidambara, for which he became the first Hindi writer to win the Jnanpith Award in 1968. Option C, Mahadevi Verma, called the modern Meera, wrote Yama, Neerja and Deepshikha. Remember the four names as a set, each with one work attached.

The correct answer is B, Tulsidas. He composed the Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi in the sixteenth century, retelling the story of Rama in seven books, and it remains the most widely read work of Hindi devotional poetry. His other works are the Vinay Patrika, the Kavitavali, the Gitavali and the Dohavali, and he belongs to the Rambhakti branch of the Sagun stream. Option A, Surdas, is of the Krishnabhakti branch and wrote the Sursagar, the Sur Saravali and the Sahitya Lahari; papers put him here because both poets belong to the same age. Option C, Kabir, is of the Nirgun stream, and his sayings survive in the Bijak. Option D, Malik Muhammad Jayasi, wrote the Padmavat and leads the Sufi or Premmargi branch. All four are Bhaktikal poets, which is exactly why the work, not the age, must be remembered.

The correct answer is D, Khushwant Singh. The End of India, published in 2003, is his book of essays written in English on communal violence and the danger it poses to the idea of India. He is better remembered for the novel Train to Pakistan, a story of Partition, and for Delhi and his newspaper columns.

Option A, Dr. Manmohan Singh, was an economist and Prime Minister whose name is tied to policy papers rather than to such a book. Option B, Salman Rushdie, wrote Midnight's Children, which won the Booker Prize in 1981, and The Satanic Verses. Option C, Shashi Tharoor, wrote The Great Indian Novel and An Era of Darkness, and because his books also argue about India's past, he is the strongest distractor here. Tie the word Partition, and this title, to Khushwant Singh.

The correct answer is A, Shashi Tharoor. Kerala: God's Own Country is an illustrated book on the land, people and culture of Kerala, written by Shashi Tharoor with photographs by M.F. Husain and brought out in 2009. Tharoor, a former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and later a Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram, has written many other books, among them The Great Indian Novel, India: From Midnight to the Millennium, An Era of Darkness and Why I Am a Hindu. 'God's Own Country' is also the tourism tagline of Kerala. Option B is wrong because Jeet Thayil is a poet and novelist known for Narcopolis, which reached the Booker shortlist in 2012. Option C is wrong because Sudha Murthy writes fiction and essays such as Wise and Otherwise, Dollar Bahu and Three Thousand Stitches. Option D is wrong because Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai was a Malayalam novelist who wrote Chemmeen and won the Jnanpith Award in 1984. Exam tip: Tharoor - The Great Indian Novel; Thakazhi - Chemmeen; Thayil - Narcopolis.

The correct answer is B, Bhartendu Harishchandra. He gave Hindi prose its modern shape through plays such as Andher Nagari and Bharat Durdasha and through journals such as Kavi Vachan Sudha, and the first age of modern Hindi literature is named the Bhartendu Yug after him. Option A, Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi, edited Saraswati and disciplined the language of the age that followed, which is called the Dwivedi Yug, but he came after Bhartendu. Option C, Acharya Ramchandra Shukla, is the historian and critic who wrote Hindi Sahitya ka Itihas and divided the literature into four periods. Option D, Munshi Premchand, is the master of the Hindi novel and short story, and his age is named after him as well, but the title in the question belongs to Bhartendu alone.

The correct answer is B, Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist, published in parts between 1837 and 1839, is his second novel and follows an orphan boy through a workhouse and the streets of London. Dickens also wrote A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Hard Times and The Pickwick Papers, and the workhouse, the pickpocket and the debtors' prison are the marks of his world.

Option A, Benazir Habib, is not the author of any novel that appears in general awareness lists. Option C, Paul Kennedy, is a historian known for The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, a work of history and not fiction. Option D, Eric Segal, wrote the popular novel Love Story in 1970, more than a century after Oliver Twist, so the period alone rules him out. When a Victorian title of London poverty is given, Dickens is the safe answer.

The correct answer is B, Salman Rushdie. Midnight's Children came out in 1981 and tells the story of children born at the hour of India's independence. It won the Booker Prize that year and was later voted the best of all Booker winners in two special polls, which is why it is the most asked Indian English novel of all.

Option A, Vikram Seth, wrote A Suitable Boy, a long novel of the nineteen fifties, and The Golden Gate, but he has not won the Booker. Option C, Amitav Ghosh, wrote The Shadow Lines and Sea of Poppies, and although Sea of Poppies reached the Booker shortlist, it did not win. Option D, V. S. Naipaul, did win the Booker, but in 1971 for In a Free State, and he also received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001. Fix the year 1981 to Rushdie.

The correct answer is B, Arundhati Roy. 'Mother Mary Comes to Me' is Arundhati Roy's memoir, published in September 2025, and it is built around her difficult, loving bond with her mother Mary Roy. Mary Roy was a teacher who founded a school in Kerala and won the 1986 Supreme Court case that gave Syrian Christian women an equal share in family property. Arundhati Roy herself won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her first novel, 'The God of Small Things', and later wrote 'The Ministry of Utmost Happiness' along with many essays. A is wrong because Jhumpa Lahiri is known for 'Interpreter of Maladies', which won the Pulitzer Prize, and 'The Namesake'. C is wrong because Vikram Seth wrote 'A Suitable Boy' and 'The Golden Gate'. D is wrong because Chetan Bhagat writes popular novels such as 'Five Point Someone' and 'Half Girlfriend'. Exam tip: Arundhati Roy — 'The God of Small Things', Booker Prize 1997.

The correct answer is C, Ritikal. Bihari was a court poet of Jaipur, and his Satsai, praised for holding much meaning in few words, is the most quoted book of the Ritikal, the age of ornament and courtly love that Ramchandra Shukla placed between Samvat 1700 and 1900. Option A, Adikal, is the age of heroic Raso poetry, of Chand Bardai and Jagnik. Option B, Bhaktikal, is the devotional age of Kabir, Jayasi, Tulsidas, Surdas and Meerabai, and candidates place Bihari there because a Satsai sounds devotional. Option D, Adhunik Kal, begins with Bhartendu Harishchandra in the nineteenth century, far later than Bihari. Along with Bihari, hold the other Ritikal names — Keshavdas, Bhushan, Ghananand, Matiram, Dev and Padmakar. A second clue lies in the language: the poetry of the Ritikal is written in Braj, the dialect of the courts, while Tulsidas of the Bhaktikal wrote his Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi.

The correct answer is B, Kapil Dev. Straight from the Heart is the autobiography of Kapil Dev, the fast bowler who captained India to its first World Cup win in 1983 at Lord's. The book came out in 2004 and describes his rise from Chandigarh, the 175 not out against Zimbabwe at Tunbridge Wells and his years as captain and coach. Kapil Dev was the first bowler to take 400 wickets in Test cricket and was named Indian Cricketer of the Century by Wisden in 2002. Option A is wrong because Sachin Tendulkar wrote Playing It My Way. Option C is wrong because M.S. Dhoni has not written an autobiography; his life was told in a film and in books by other authors. Option D is wrong because Sourav Ganguly wrote A Century Is Not Enough. Exam tip: Straight from the Heart is Kapil Dev, Playing It My Way is Sachin Tendulkar, A Century Is Not Enough is Sourav Ganguly.

The correct answer is C, Arundhati Roy. The God of Small Things, published in 1997, is set in Kerala and won the Booker Prize the same year, making her the first Indian woman to receive that award. She published her second novel, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, twenty years later, in between writing essays on politics and the environment.

Option A, Kiran Desai, won the Booker in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss, so she is a genuine Booker winner but not the author of this novel. Option B, Anita Desai, is Kiran Desai's mother and wrote Fire on the Mountain and Clear Light of Day; she was shortlisted for the Booker three times without winning. Option D, Kamala Markandaya, wrote Nectar in a Sieve, an earlier novel of village life. The mother and daughter pair is the trap in this question.

The correct answer is A, Mother Teresa. She was born at Skopje, came to India as a nun, took Indian citizenship in 1948 and founded the Missionaries of Charity at Kolkata in 1950. The Nobel Peace Prize was given to her in 1979 for her work among the poorest of the poor, and she remains the only woman from India to have received it.

Option B, Nargis Dutt, was a film actress who was given the Padma Shri and was later a member of the Rajya Sabha, but she was never a Nobel laureate. Option C, Indira Gandhi, was Prime Minister of India and received the Bharat Ratna in 1971; no Indian Prime Minister has won the Nobel Peace Prize. Option D, Sarojini Naidu, called the Nightingale of India, was the first woman President of the Indian National Congress and the first woman Governor of a state, but she too won no Nobel Prize.

The correct answer is D, Chand Bardai. He was the court poet of Prithviraj Chauhan, and his Prithviraj Raso, in Braj mixed with Rajasthani, is the longest and most discussed work of the Adikal or Veergatha Kal. Option A, Jagnik, composed the Parmal Raso, from which the Alha ballads of Bundelkhand come, so he is of the right age but the wrong work. Option B, Vidyapati, wrote the Padavali in Maithili on the love of Radha and Krishna, and is often placed at the close of the Adikal. Option C, Amir Khusro, wrote riddles, mukariyan and dohas that are the earliest playful use of Khari Boli. All four belong to the same period, so the pairing of poet with work is the whole of the question.

The correct answer is B, George Orwell. Animal Farm, published in 1945, is a short novel in which farm animals drive out their owner and set up their own rule, which soon turns into the tyranny they had overthrown. George Orwell was the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair, and his other famous novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, appeared in 1949.

Option A, Aldous Huxley, wrote Brave New World, another famous novel of a controlled society, which makes it the closest distractor here. Option C, H. G. Wells, wrote scientific romances such as The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. Option D, Thomas Hardy, wrote novels of rural England such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd. Keep the pair Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four under one name, Orwell.

The correct answer is B, Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. He is the poet of national feeling in modern Hindi, and Urvashi, Rashmirathi, Kurukshetra and Hunkar are his chief works; Urvashi brought him the Jnanpith Award in 1972. Option A, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, wrote Madhushala, the most widely recited long poem of the Halavad manner, along with Nisha Nimantran and his autobiography Kya Bhoolun Kya Yaad Karun. Option C, Mahadevi Verma, is of Chhayavad and wrote Yama, Neerja and Deepshikha. Option D, Nirala, also of Chhayavad, wrote Ram ki Shakti Puja and Saroj Smriti. Because all four are modern poets of nearly the same years, papers test the work rather than the age, so tie Urvashi and Rashmirathi firmly to Dinkar. Dinkar also sat in the Rajya Sabha and received the Padma Bhushan, and lines from Rashmirathi are still quoted in speeches, which is why his name recurs in paper after paper.

The correct answer is C, Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813 and follows Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy through the manners and marriages of English country society. Austen also wrote Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansfield Park and Persuasion, and her novels turn on family, money and marriage rather than on adventure.

Option A, Charlotte Bronte, wrote Jane Eyre, the story of a governess, and is often placed against Austen in these questions. Option B, Emily Bronte, her sister, wrote the single novel Wuthering Heights. Option D, George Eliot, was the pen name of Mary Ann Evans, who wrote Silas Marner, Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss. All four are nineteenth-century English women novelists, so the pairing of title to name must be learnt rather than guessed.