Archives: Authors

Priyanka Pathak Narain has two decades of expertise in investigations, writing about religion, symbolism, and mythology. Her reportage for BBC, New York Times, Times of India and Mint has won global awards.

Ammar Kalia is a writer, musician and journalist living in London. Since 2019, he has been the Guardian’s global music critic and has written for publications including the Observer, BBC, Dazed, Mixmag, The Economist, Downbeat and Crack. In 2020, he published a collection of poetry and an accompanying album, Kintsugi: Jazz Poems for Musicians Alive and Dead, and in 2022, his essay on music and identity was included in the collection Haramacy. A Person Is a Prayer is Kalia’s debut novel and was shortlisted for the Unbound Firsts Prize in 2022.

Ruth Vanita (Author)
Ruth Vanita taught at Delhi University for twenty years and is now professor at the University of Montana. She was founding co-editor of Manushi 1978-90. She is the author of several books, including Sappho and the Virgin Mary: Same-Sex Love and the English Literary Imagination (1996); Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India (2005); Gandhi’s Tiger and Sita’s Smile: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and Culture (2005), Gender, Sex and the City: Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India 1780–1870 (2012); Dancing with the Nation: Courtesans in Bombay Cinema (2017). Her first novel, Memory of Light, appeared in 2020.

She is the author of over sixty articles on British and Indian literature, and has translated many works of fiction and poetry from Hindi and Urdu to English, most notably Chocolate: Stories on Male-Male Desire by Pandey Bechan Sharma ‘Ugra’ (2008). She divides her time between Missoula and Gurgaon.

Saleem Kidwai (Author)
Saleem Kidwai is a historian and independent scholar, who taught at Ramjas College, Delhi University, for twenty years. He has published several academic essays on medieval and modern India, and translated several works, including Song Sung True: A Memoir by Malka Pukhraj and a collection of Syed Rafiq Hussain’s short stories, The Mirror of Wonders. Apart from the author herself, he is the only person to have translated the novels of Qurratulain Hyder, Chandni Begum and Ship of Sorrow.

Sohail Ahmed, who writes with the pen name of Sohail Rauf, is a PhD in electrical engineering and works for an engineering firm. Originally from Pakistan, he lives near Houston, Texas with his wife and two children. ‘Blasphear’ is his first novel.

Puneet Sikka is an aspiring actress and media professional who has worked in theatre, TV & digital commercials, short films, and a feature film. She has studied at the Lady Shri Ram College and Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication. Her debut novel, Take No. 2020, is a hybrid of pop culture and realism that combines her lived experience within the entertainment industry and her passion for writing.