Coming October publisher Penguin Random House will launch a new biography on the late superstar, Sridevi. Titled Sridevi: Girl Woman Superstar, the book written by author and screenwriter Satyarth Nayak, will track the journey of the actress who joined the Indian film industry at the when she was just four.
The book will be published under the Ebury Press imprint of Penguin Random House which centres on bringing out top voices in popular fiction and non-fiction. Embarking on a career quite early in her life, the actress went on to become a much-sought-after filmstar in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu cinema. Her films such as Mr India (1987), Lamhe (1991), Chaalbaaz (1989), Chandni (1989) among others were much appreciated by cinema lovers across the world.
Milee Ashwarya, Publisher, Ebury Publishing and Vintage Publishing, Penguin Random House India speaks with The Morning Standard on her decision to bring out the book on Sridevi. “Sridevi by Satyarth Nayak is a very important book for our list this year. For me, Sridevi was not only an actor but an icon who inspired many women across the globe. Her strong persona onscreen created magic and left an indelible mark on the minds of her fans. Her warmth and quiet offscreen image added to the mystery of who she really was. Sridevi was a star in the true sense of the word, and our book is a tribute to her extraordinary life.”
For the research process of the book, the author Satyarth Nayak relied on two sources. He interacted with various cinema personalities that she had worked with and went back to reading interviews of her published in yesteryears film magazines. He says, “I have been fortunate enough to meet the very best of actors, directors, writers and technicians that Sridevi collaborated with both in Bollywood and in the southern film industries and collect a plethora of unheard stories and inputs. These form the principal narrative of the book charting her five-decade-long journey from child star to superstar. My other source was my own personal collection of film magazines from the 80s and 90s featuring great interviews of Sridevi. Those have also helped immensely in piecing together the evolution of this cinema icon.”