Veteran writer and much-loved literature professor Nisha da Cunha has died at the age of 92, leaving behind a legacy shaped equally by her fiction and the generations of students she introduced to literature. She passed away at her residence on Tuesday evening.

Born into a Gujarati political family, da Cunha was the daughter of former finance and home minister H M Patel. She spent her early years in Delhi, growing up in a household where books were an important part of everyday life. Her father maintained an extensive library and encouraged his five daughters to spend their spare time reading.

Da Cunha began her academic career teaching English literature at Miranda House in Delhi, where she worked for five years. After marrying advertising veteran Sylvester da Cunha and moving to Bombay, she joined St Xavier’s College. She taught there for 25 years and eventually became head of the English Literature department before retiring in 1985. Former students remembered her as a teacher capable of making difficult literary works feel immediate and alive.

Her career as a fiction writer began comparatively late. Former civil servant and diplomat A D Gorwala, a close friend of her father, was among those who encouraged her to begin writing. She was later introduced to publisher David Davidar, who would work with her on several books.

Her debut collection, ‘Old Cypress: Stories’, appeared in 1991 and established her reputation as a short-story writer. It was followed by ‘The Permanence of Grief’ in 1993, ‘Set My Heart in Aspic’ in 1997 and ‘No Black, No White: Short Stories’ in 2001. Writer and critic Shanta Gokhale remembered da Cunha’s fiction for its lyrical quality, emotional tenderness and carefully controlled craft.

Her literary work was also preparing to find a new audience on screen. Actor-director Bugs Bhargava Krishna and da Cunha’s son, playwright and theatre director Rahul da Cunha, had been developing an adaptation of ‘Old Cypress’. Shooting was expected to begin in October, with plans for versions in both Hindi and English. Da Cunha had reportedly been excited about the project.

For many who knew her, however, da Cunha’s legacy cannot be separated into writer and teacher. Her classrooms, conversations and stories all sprang from the same lifelong engagement with literature, one that continued well into her final years.