Iconic singing legend Lata Mangeshkar’s new book

The story of Lata Mangeshkar, by Yatindra Mishra, Bolloywood’s super-mega musical star is due to be released in January 2016, according to the publishers. The book in Hindi will be translated by Ira Pande, a Sahitya Akademi award winner according Penguin Random House statement.

The book “Lata Mangeshkar: A musical journey” reveals little known facts intertwined with the story of her life in music, her successes, her struggle and her reign as the Queen of Hindi music from the 1940s to the present day.

Lata has been an iconic figure admired by millions of fans in South Asia.

Lata Mangeshkar, born in Indore, India on September 28, 1929, quite simply the most popular playback singer in Bollywood’s history spanning over 50 years for actresses from Nargis to Preeti Zinta, having appeared in the Guinness Book of World Records listed as the most-recorded artist in the world with over 30,000 solos, duet and chorus backed songs recorded in 20 Indian languages between 1948 to 1987. In 1940s when bass singers with heavy nasal voices, like Noor Jehan and Shamshad Begum were popular in the Bollywood, Lata’s voice was rejected from many projects because it was believed to be too high-pitched and thin. In 1942 after her father died she acted in eight films in Hindi and Marathi and made her debut as playback singer in the Marathi film Kiti Hasaal (1942), but the song was ironically edited out. In 1948, she got her big break with Ghulam Haider in the Bollywood movie Majboor with her songs hitting the right tone and popularity and she never looked back. In the 60s and 70s her popularity went from strength to strength despite accusations that she was monopoising the playback singing industry. New female playback singers spanning several generations failed to replace the timeless voice of Lata Mangeshkar.