Books and Authors Questions and Answers

Answer: C

A Brief History of Time was written by Stephen Hawking.

The British theoretical physicist published it in 1988 as a popular account of cosmology, covering the Big Bang, black holes and the nature of time. It became one of the best-selling science books ever.

Newton wrote the Principia (1687), Einstein's best-known writings are on relativity, and Archimedes was an ancient Greek mathematician, so none of them wrote this book.

Answer: C

The book not written by Premchand is Guide.

The Guide (1958) is an English novel by R. K. Narayan, set in his fictional town of Malgudi; it won the Sahitya Akademi Award and was filmed as Guide (1965).

The other three are Munshi Premchand's: Gaban (1931) and Godan (1936) are his Hindi novels, and Mansarovar is the collection of his short stories in several volumes.

Answer: D

Aurobindo was the author of Savitri.

Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol is Sri Aurobindo's epic poem in English blank verse, retelling the Mahabharata story of Savitri and Satyavan as a spiritual allegory. He worked on it for decades, and at about 24,000 lines it is among the longest poems in English.

The Discovery of India is Jawaharlal Nehru's, The Hindu View of Life is S. Radhakrishnan's, and the Yogashastra is a work by the Jain scholar Hemachandra.

Answer: A

Sherlock Holmes was created by Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Scottish writer and physician introduced the detective in A Study in Scarlet (1887) and wrote four novels and fifty-six short stories about him.

Dr. Watson is not an author but Holmes's companion, the narrator of most of the stories. Ian Fleming created James Bond, and Shakespeare lived about three centuries before Holmes was invented.

Answer: A

V.S. Naipaul is the author of A House for Mr. Biswas.

Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, the Trinidad-born British writer of Indian descent, published A House for Mr Biswas in 1961. It is the story of Mohun Biswas's struggle to own a house of his own, modelled partly on Naipaul's father. Naipaul won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.

My Name Is Red is a novel by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, and the other two titles are not Naipaul's books.

Answer: B

The novel 'Astarag' (Astaraag) is by Homen Borgohain.

Homen Borgohain was a leading Assamese novelist, short-story writer and journalist, who won the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel Pita Putra.

The other two are also Assamese novelists, which is why the options are close. Nirupama Borgohain, his wife, won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Abhijatri, and Rita Chowdhury won it for Deo Langkhui. Since the author is among the options, 'None of them' is wrong.

Answer: D

The key's answer is M. V. Kamath.

Madhav Vittal Kamath was a veteran journalist, a former editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India and later chairman of Prasar Bharati, and wrote many books on Indian public life. The paper credits India of our dreams to him.

Do not confuse the title with India of My Dreams, a compilation of Mahatma Gandhi's writings. Dr. Rajendra Prasad is known for India Divided and Dr. S. Radhakrishnan for The Hindu View of Life, so neither is the author here.

Answer: A

It was Pearl S. Buck.

She grew up in China as the daughter of missionaries, and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938, largely for The Good Earth. All Under Heaven, published in 1973, was among her last novels.

Answer: A

A Simple Path was written by Mother Teresa, compiled with Lucinda Vardey.

The book sets out her spiritual method in five steps - silence, prayer, faith, love and service. It reflects the working philosophy of the Missionaries of Charity, the order she founded in Calcutta in 1950.

Answer: D

Matters of Discretion: An Autobiography is by I.K. Gujral.

He was prime minister from 1997 to 1998 and is remembered for the Gujral Doctrine, which offered India's smaller neighbours concessions without expecting reciprocity.