Rupert Snell

Rupert Snell

Rupert Snell is the Director of the Hindi Urdu Flagship and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Asian Studies. Before moving to Texas he taught at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, for three decades. Snell is a recipient of the prestigious Sir George Grierson Hindi Sevi Sammaan Award given by the President of India in 1997 in recognition of his services to the Hindi language. Known worldwide for his textbooks in the Teach Yourself series, he teaches Hindi language at all levels. His research interests lie primarily in 16th and 17th century poetry; publications in the field include The Eighty-Four Hymns of Hita Harivamsha (a little-known devotional text) and The Hindi Classical Tradition: A Braj Bhasa Reader (an expanded edition of which is currently under preparation, together with a sister volume on the Awadhi Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas). His study Hindi and Urdu since 1800: a Common Reader, co-written with Christopher Shackle in 1990, is available in full under the Resources section of our website. A book that has received much acclaim is Snell’s translation of the autobiography of the 20th-century Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan, published in 1998 under the title In the Afternoon of Time. Snell has also edited several volumes of papers, including According to Tradition: Hagiographical Writing in India (with Winand Callewaert), Classics of Modern South Asian Literature (with Ian Raeside), and Chutnefying English: the Phenomenon of Hinglish (with Rita Kothari). Current projects include a reader in Hindi autobiography, a translation of the Satsai of Biharilal, and, in collaboration with Laura Brueck of the University of Colorado, a study of the stylistics of 20th-century Hindi writing.