December 30, 2008 – 2:09 am
Born in 1935 in Australia,Thomas Keneally has written nearly thirty novels, two memoirs and a number of historical works. The novels include four Booker Prize short-listees – including The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Gossip From the Forest, Confederates and Schindler’s Ark, the latter of which won the prize. His historical work includes The Great Shame [...]
December 28, 2008 – 5:43 am
Alka Saraogi[1960] is a fiction-writer in Hindi, living in Calcutta among writers mostly writing in Bengali or English. Her first novel Kali-katha: via bypass that traces the fifty years of India’s independence through a fifth-generation migrant family in Calcutta from Rajasthan got her the Sahitya-akedemi award. It has been translated into French,Italian, German and Spanish [...]
December 26, 2008 – 3:41 am
James Bridle
Director, Bookkake
W http://bookkake.com
James is the Owner and Director of Bookkake, a new publishing house which uses an entirely print-on-demand process to publish new and classic works of transgressive literature. He also works as a consultant for Apt, a London-based design and marketing consultancy, planning and producing web and new media projects for clients in [...]
December 23, 2008 – 4:15 am
Four poets from the United Kingdom will spend a week with four Indian authors exploring each other’s work through translation. Come and hear the outcome of this unique literary exchange. With Meg Bateman, Sampurna Chattarji, Matthew Hollis, Mererid Hopwood, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, Sivasankari and Udaya Narayana Singh. Presented by Alexandra Büchler & [...]
December 22, 2008 – 3:08 am
Anita Rau Badami is the author of numerous short stories, features, and three critically acclaimed novels: Tamarind Mem, The Hero’s Walk, Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? which have been published in more than fifteen countries and have won or been on the short-list for a number of awards. She lives in Montreal, Canada and [...]
December 22, 2008 – 3:05 am
Leila Seth was the first woman Chief Justice of a High Court in India, the first woman Judge of the Delhi High Court and the first woman to top the Bar examinations in England. Her autobiography On Balance intertwines her family and professional life and speaks of her over fifty years of marriage with shoemaker [...]
December 20, 2008 – 5:06 am
Some of Udayan’s writings include Sudeshna & Door Desh Ki Gandh (short-stories), Abhed Aakash (book of conversations with Film maker Mani Kaul), Kuchh Vakya Ganitajna ki Kavitayen (poems), Charkhe Par Barhat (essays), Vie Invisible (poems in French translation, Paris), which have been translated into many languages across the world.
Mr. Vajpeyi has translated texts of Octavio Paz, [...]
December 20, 2008 – 5:06 am
Tulsi Badrinath is a writer and dancer based in Madras. Meeting Lives, which was on the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize longlist under a different title, is her first novel. She trained in Bharata Natyam from the age of eight and has performed widely in India and abroad.
December 20, 2008 – 5:06 am
Tina Brown is the Founder and Editor in Chief of The Daily Beast. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles. She has written for numerous publications including The Times of London, The Spectator, and the Washington Post.Ms. Brown graduated with an M.A. from Oxford at St Anne’s [...]
December 20, 2008 – 5:05 am
Sudeep Chakravarti is the author of a work of narrative non-fiction about India’s Maoist rebellion, Red Sun—Travels in Naxalite Country and two novels, Tin Fish and Once Upon a Time in Aparanta. A former career journalist, he is also a columnist, professional futurist, and media consultant. Sudeep lives in Goa, India.
December 20, 2008 – 5:04 am
Sirish Rao is one of the directors of Tara Books – widely regarded as one of India’s finest independent houses. As a writer, Sirish has authored novels, children’s books, re-tellings of myths, and books on art. His books have been translated into seventeen languages and have won several international awards.
December 20, 2008 – 5:03 am
Sheldon Pollock is The William B. Ransford Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, at the University of Columbia. His areas of specialization are Sanskrit philology and Indian intellectual and literary history, and, increasingly, comparative intellectual history. Some of his publications include The Bouquet of Rasa and the River of Rasa of Bhanudatta, Is there an [...]
December 20, 2008 – 5:03 am
Dr. Shashi Tharoor is a prize-winning author of ten books, fiction and non-fiction; and a widely-published critic, commentator and columnist
His books include the classic The Great Indian Novel (1989), India: From Midnight to the Millennium (1997), Nehru: The Invention of India (2003), and most recently, The Elephant, the Tiger, and the Cell phone: Reflections [...]
December 20, 2008 – 5:01 am
Pico Iyer is the author of two novels and seven books of non-fiction, including Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul and, most recently, The Open Road, an account of 33 years of talking and traveling with the XIVth Dalai Lama.
December 20, 2008 – 5:01 am
Nikita Lalwani was born in Rajasthan and raised in Cardiff. Her novel Gifted was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. In June 2008 she won the Desmond Elliot Prize for Fiction and donated the £10,000 prize to human rights campaigners, [...]
December 20, 2008 – 5:00 am
Nasreen Munni Kabir is a documentary film-maker who has made several series on Indian cinema. She is Channel 4’s consultant on Indian cinema.In 2005 Nasreen completed two documentaries on Shah Rukh Khan: The Inner World of Shah Rukh Khan and The Outer World of Shah Rukh Khan. She has written several books including Guru Dutt [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:59 am
Nandan Nilekani’s book Imagining India – Ideas for a new Century has recently been launched in India. In this sweeping and comprehensive book, one of the country’s finest and most dynamic minds examines the central ideas that have shaped modern India, and offers an original perspective on our past, present and future.Across the world, Nandan [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:56 am
Mohammed Hanif graduated from Pakistan Air Force Academy as Pilot Officer, but subsequently left to pursue a career in journalism. He has written plays for the stage and BBC radio, and his film The Long Night has been shown at film festivals around the world. His first novel A Case of Exploding Mangoes was long [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:54 am
Michael Wood is the writer of many acclaimed books and television programmes which have been seen world wide, including Art of the Western World and In Search of Shakespeare. His latest series recently aired in India was The Story of India and he is also author of A South Indian Journey (Penguin).
December 20, 2008 – 4:53 am
Michael Patrick MacDonald is the author of the memoirs, All Souls: A Family Story From Southie and Easter Rising: A Memoir of Roots and Rebellion. He has been awarded an American Book Award, a New England Literary Lights Award, a Golden Pen Award from the National Networks for Youth, and a fellowship at Bellagio Study [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:52 am
Manjushree Thapa is a Nepali writer based in Kathmandu and Toronto. Her past works include The Tutor of History, a novel; the nonfiction Forget Kathmandu; and a short story collection, Tilled Earth. Her upcoming books include a biography of a Nepali environmentalist, a collection of Nepali literature in translation, and a novel set among the [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:52 am
Manju Malhi first book, the award winning Brit Spice was published by Penguin. Her other books include India with Passion on regional Indian home cuisine and Easy Indian Cookbook. She won the BBC’s Food and Drink competition in 1999 and cooked with Antony Worrall Thompson on BBC2. She has done a forty part series entitled [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:52 am
Linda Spalding was born in Kansas and lived in Mexico and Hawaii before immigrating to Toronto in 1982. She is the author of three critically acclaimed novels, Daughters of Captain Cook, The Paper Wife, and Mere, which she wrote with her daughter, Esta.
Her non-fiction work, Follow, was short-listed for the Trillium Book Award and the [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:50 am
K.Satchidanandan is a poet of national and international repute writing in Malayalam. He was Professor of English at Christ College, Kerala, editor of Indian Literature, the journal of the Sahitya Akademi and later it’s Chief Executive.He has 21 collections of poetry in Malayalam besides 16 collections of world poetry in translation and 23 collections of [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:48 am
Imraan Coovadia was born in Durban, South Africa. He was educated at Yale, and is the author of two novels, The Wedding and Green-eyed Thieves, as well as a forthcoming monograph on V.S. Naipaul. His new novel, Broken Window, appears in 2009. He has published many book reviews, essays, and short stories, both in South [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:48 am
Hari Kunzru lives in New York City as a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman fellow at the New York Public Library. He is the author of three novels: The Impressionist, which won the Betty Trask Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award; Transmission; and My Revolutions, which came out in January. In 2003, he was named [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:47 am
Geetanjali Shree is amongst the foremost Hindi writers today. She is known for her adventurous and innovative prose. Her stories have been included in anthologies in other Indian languages and also in some European languages.
She wrote a biography of a major Hindi writer, Premchand, Between Two Worlds: An Intellectual Biography of Premchand. She [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:45 am
Derek Mahon was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1941, studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and the Sorbonne, and has worked as a journalist and screenwriter in London and New York, where he also held academic appointments. He now lives in Kinsale, Ireland. He has received numerous awards including a Lannan fellowship. Recent titles include [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:45 am
Daniyal Mueenuddin was brought up in Lahore, Pakistan. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Yale Law School, his stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, and The Best American Short Stories 2008, selected by Salman Rushdie. After practicing for several years as a lawyer in New York City, he now manages a farm [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:44 am
Colin Thubron is a celebrated travel writer and novelist. His most important works have been on the Middle East, the ex-Soviet Union Among the Russians, China Behind the Wall, Central Asia The Lost Heart of Asia and Siberia In Siberia. His latest book Shadow of the Silk Road embraces the regions and interests that have occupied [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:43 am
Dr. Coleman Barks, now retired Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia in Athens, taught American Literature and Creative Writing at various universities for thirty four years. He has published six volumes of his own poetry and has collaborated with various scholars of the Persian language to bring the poetry of the 13th Century mystic, [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:43 am
Christophe Jaffrelot has been Director of CERI (Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales) at Sciences Po (Paris) between 2000 and 2008. He is Research director at the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) and teaches South Asian politics and history at Sciences Po. His most significant publications are The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:42 am
Brigid Keenan was born in India and began her career in journalism on a provincial newspaper in Britain. She has worked with the Sunday Times, the iconic magazine Nova, & The Observer.
Among the titles she has published are a biography of Christian Dior, a fashion history entitled The Women we wanted to look like, [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:41 am
Basharat Peer has worked as a reporter for Rediff.com and Tehelka in Delhi and Srinagar and as an editor for Foreign Affairs in New York. His work has appeared in the Guardian, New Statesman, The Nation, Financial Times, and Columbia Journalism Review. His first book, Curfewed Night, a memoir of Kashmir, was published by Random [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:40 am
Ashok Vajpeyi, Hindi poet-critic, editor and art-lover. He has written thirteen books of poetry and eight of criticism three of which are in English on visual arts. He won the Sahitya Akademi Award, Kabir Samman, Dayavati Modi Kavi Shekhar Samman and has been decorated by Govts of France and Poland for his cultural contributions.
Ashok Vajpeyi [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:39 am
Arupa Patangia Kalita, one of Assam’s leading writers, has four novels and eight short story collections including Ayananta (2004), Felani (2003), and Kurosawar Sapon (2007). She also writes on questions concerning society and woman. A Ph.D. in English literature, she teaches at Tangla College, Assam.
December 20, 2008 – 4:35 am
Aruna Chakravarti is a well known academic, writer and translator. Prominent among her nine published books are her translations of Saratchandra Chattopadhyay’s Srikanta and Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Those Days and its sequel First Light. She is the recipient the Vaitalik Award, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Sarat Puraskar. Her first novel The Inheritors was short [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:34 am
Arthur Flowers is author of novels De Mojo Blues, Another Good Loving Blues and nonfiction work, Mojo Rising: Confessions of a 21st Century Conjureman. He is a Director of New Renaissance Writers Guild and the Pan African Literary Forum. He teaches Syracuse MFA and is a delta griot, a performance poet in the griotic line [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:33 am
Arshia Sattar has a Ph d from the Department of South Asian languages and civilizations at the University Of Chicago. Her translations from Sanskrit, of tales from the Kathasaritsagara and the Valmiki Ramayana have been published by Penguin books.
December 20, 2008 – 4:32 am
Antara Dev Sen is Founder Editor of The Little Magazine, an independent publication on social concerns, cultural issues and South Asian literature (www.littlemag.com). A columnist with The Week, DNA, Asian Age and Ekdin Live, Sen has earlier worked as a senior editor with The Hindustan Times and The Indian Express, among other assignments. She lives [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:32 am
Aminatta Forna is the author of a memoir, The Devil that Danced on the Water and Ancestor Stones, a novel. Her books have been nominated for and won several awards. Aminatta has also published essays and articles, and written for television and radio. She is currently writing her second novel.
December 20, 2008 – 4:30 am
Alice Albinia’s history of the Indus valley is told as a journey along the river, from its delta at the Arabian Sea, north through Pakistan, Afghanistan and India, to its source in Tibet. Empires of the Indus:The Story of a River was long listed for the Guardian First Book Award and is published by John [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:21 am
Chetan Bhagat is the author of two blockbuster novels – Five Point Someone (2004) and One Night @ the call center (2005). In March 2008, the New York Times called him the “biggest selling English author in India’s history”. The 3 Mistakes of My Life is his third novel.
After eleven years in Hong Kong, the [...]
December 20, 2008 – 4:16 am
Biographer and travel-writer Charles Nicholl is the author of The Reckoning, a prize-winning investigation of the murder of Christopher Marlowe. His biography of Leonardo da Vinci, , has been translated into seventeen languages.His latest book, The Lodger, is an intimate study of Shakespeare in his London lodgings in 1604.
December 20, 2008 – 3:49 am
Writers’ Chain: Found in Translation
Four poets from the United Kingdom have spent a week with four Indian authors exploring each others’ work through translation and discussion. Come and
hear the outcome of this literary exchange with… Meg Bateman, Sampurna Chattarji, Matthew Hollis, Mererid Hopwood, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, Sivasankari and Udaya Narayana Singh. Presented [...]