Archives: Authors

Eliza Crewe’s love affair with books began very early, when she first set foot in the magical Urbana Free Library in Urbana, Illinois. She took a brief detour through law school, but eventually made it back into books, first as a librarian and now as a writer. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, daughter and five hens.

Shyam Selvadurai was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Funny Boy, his first novel, was published to acclaim in 1994 and won the W.H. Smith Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Lambda Literary Award in the United States. He is the author of Cinnamon Gardens and Swimming in the Monsoon Sea and the editor of an anthology, Story-wallah! A Celebration of South Asian Fiction. His books have been published in the United States, the United Kingdom and India, and published in translation in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Turkey and Israel.

One of the most versatile and innovative of Tamil writers, a great modernist and a dazzling stylist, Sundara Ramaswamy (1931 – 2005 ) wrote in many genres – poetry, novel, short story, play, personal essay and literary criticism – making real interventions in Tamil writing. Each of his three novels is recognized as path – breaking, and he also edited and published a notable literary magazine, Kalachuvadu, which became a forum for new writing and literary debate.

Dr Karma Phuntsho is a leading scholar on Bhutan and teaches Buddhism and Bhutan Studies in the country and abroad. He finished his full monastic training before he joined Oxford University to pursue a D.Phil. in Oriental Studies. Since 2003, he has worked as a research fellow at Cambridge University and CNRS, Paris. The author of several books and numerous articles, he speaks and writes extensively on Bhutan’s history, religion and culture.

His current work focuses on the documentation and study of Bhutan’s written and oral cultures. He is also an enthusiastic social worker and the founder of the Loden Foundation, a leading educational charity in Bhutan.

Sonora Jha is the author of the novels The Laughter and Foreign, and the memoir How to Raise a Feminist Son. After a career as a journalist covering crime, politics, and culture in India and Singapore, she moved to the United States to earn a PhD in media and public affairs. Sonora and her work have been featured in the New York Times and literary anthologies, on the BBC, and elsewhere. She is a Loyola Endowed Professor at Seattle University and lives in Seattle.

Heather Saville Gupta worked in London’s top advertising agencies before fleeing England for a backpacking trip in 2000. She was seduced by the thrill of Asia and took up an advertising job in Bangkok before moving to India. She now lives in Mumbai with her husband and two children.