Shashi Deshpande was born in the year of 1938 in Karnataka. Her father.Shriranga was an eminent Kannada dramatist and writer. She received her early education at a protestant mission school in Karnataka. Since childhood he was fond of English literature and used to read various types English books. Particularly she liked the work of Jane Austen. Later she studied Economics in Bombay and graduated in Law from Bangalore. After that She received an MA in English Literature.

In 1978 her first anthology of short stories was published .Two years after in 1980 her first novel The Dark Holds No Terror was published.In 1990 he got Sahitya Akademi Award for the novel `That Long Silence`. In 1996 her famous novel A Matter of Time was published through she unfolds the different experiences of women in India. She also penned some children books. The The Binding Vine was published in 2002.

Her novels are mainly based on women lives and their problems perticularly in the Indian context. For this reason she has been labelled feminist.She explored the realities behind the silence of women.She raised her voice against torment on women and also created mass awareness in this matter through her writings.Her books are translated into several Indian languages.