Archives: Authors

R. Rajasree was born in Parassinikkadavu in northern Kerala in 1977. She currently teaches at the Government Brennan College at Thalassery. She has a PhD in Malayalam and her early writing includes books on detective fiction and on the construction of female protagonists in Malayalam. Her first novel, titled Kalyaaniyum Daakshaayaniyum Ennu Peraaya Randu Sthreekalute Kata, wrote originally as a series of Facebook posts, was published in 2019. Hailed as an exciting new voice in Malayalam, it has subsequently won major literary awards in Malayalam, notably the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award (2021).

J DEVIKA is a feminist historian, social researcher and translator, currently with the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. She translates literary writing from
Malayalam to English and social science writing from English to Malayalam. She has translated the literary writings of K.R. Meera, Sarah Joseph, Unni R., Ambikasuthan Mangad and Lalithambika Antharjanam, among others. Her website, www. swatantryavaadini.in, is a collection of translations of the writings of early twentieth-century feminists in Malayalam-speaking regions.

Raj Shamani is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker and social media influencer. He has featured on the ‘Top 5 Young Influencers of India’ list (YourStory), as well as on the ‘Top 10 Young Entrepreneurs in India’ list (Asian Age). His podcast, Figuring Out, is the top podcast on entrepreneurship in the country. He is the youngest Indian to speak at the United Nations Assembly. He has given four TEDx Talks and over 200 keynotes in over twenty-six countries.

After studying physics at St Stephens College in Delhi, Saurabh Kirpal read law at the University of Oxford and did his master’s in law at the University of Cambridge. He did a brief stint working with the United Nations in Geneva before returning to Delhi. There, he has been practicing at the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court and has been designated as a Senior Advocate by a unanimous Court. He has appeared in a range of matters covering a diverse range of subjects from commercial to constitutional law. This is reflected in the variety of clients he has appeared for—from Anil Ambani in his legal battle against his brother to being the counsel for Navtej Johar, Ritu Dalmia and others in the case that led to the reading down of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. He also argued the case seeking recognition of same sex marriage before the Supreme Court. A self-described ‘accidental activist’ he also is the managing trustee of the Naz Foundation Trust, the NGO that first fought for decriminalization of homosexuality in India. He is editor of Sex and the Supreme Court, an anthology about issues relating to law, gender and sexuality and has also authored the book Fifteen judgments: Cases that Shaped India’s Financial Landscape.

Mufti Mudasir Farooqi is a faculty in the Department of English, University of Kashmir. Proficient in English, Kashmiri, Urdu, Persian and Arabic, he has made academic contributions to several areas such as literary theory and criticism, postmodern drama, Kashmir history and literature, Indo-Persian literature and Islamic studies. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the research programme ‘Future Philology: Revisiting the Canons of Textual Scholarship’ at Freie University of Berlin in 2012-13.
His English translation of Kashmir’s foremost Persian poet Tahir Ghani Kashmiri The Captured Gazelle: The Poems of Ghani Kashmiri was published as a Penguin Classic in 2013 while an annotated Urdu translation of Ghani’s complete works titled Aatash-e Toor: Deewan-e Ghani Kashmiri has come out in 2022.

Mahmud Ga¯mi stands out among the Kashmiri poets as a pioneer in introducing the Persian genres of the ghazal, nazm, masnavi and na¯t into Kashmiri. Not only is he the first truly prolific poet of the language, but much of his poetry is also remarkable for its beauty of expression and depth of thought. His vatsuns (lyrical poems) and masnavis (narrative poems) such as ‘Yusuf Zulaykha’, ‘Khusrau Shi¯ri¯n’, ‘Layla Majnun’ and ‘Sheikh San’a¯n’ have rightly been acclaimed as significant contributions to Kashmiri poetry.

VINOY THOMAS hails from Nellikkampoyil, Iritty, in north Kerala. A schoolteacher by profession, he is one of the most promising young writers in Malayalam. His short-story collections include Ramachi, Mullaranjanam and Adiyormisiha Enna Novel. His debut novel, Karikkottakkary (English translation soon to be published by Penguin Random House India) was selected as one of the five best novels in the DC Books competition. His second novel, Puttu (Anthill), won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for the best Malayalam novel of 2021. In 2019, Ramachi had won the same award for short stories. Vinoy has also authored a children’s book, Anatham Piriyatham. His short stories have been made into movies. He is also a gifted scriptwriter and has to his credit a few acclaimed movies.

An alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, Anirudha Bhattacharjee is an SAP consultant by profession, a musician by passion and a chronicler of music and cinema by avocation. R.D. Burman: The Man, The Music, his first book (co-written with Balaji Vittal), won the National Award for best book on cinema in 2012. Gaata Rahe Mera Dil (also co-written with Balaji Vittal) won the MAMI Award in its inaugural year, 2015. His other books include the critically acclaimed S.D. Burman: The Prince-Musician (2018, co-written with Balaji Vittal) and the bestseller Kishore Kumar: The Ultimate Biography (2022, co-written with Parthiv Dhar).

Anirudha lives with his family in Calcutta, India, where he spends time watching films with his wife when not pretending to work or watching football matches. Basu Chatterji: And Middle-of-the-Road Cinema is his first book on a film-maker.

Amandeep Sandhu was born in Rourkela, Odisha. He completed his Master’s in English Literature from the University of Hyderabad. He worked as a journalist and later as a technical writer. His first two books were autobiographical fiction: Sepia Leaves (2008) and Roll of Honour (2012).
For the past few years, he has written for the media and contributed to anthologies. He now lives in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Panjab: Journeys through Fault Lines, his first non-fiction book, was originally published in 2019 to great critical acclaim and reception.