Archives: Authors

Malaravan, born in April 1972 near Jaffna, was the youngest of his four siblings. He joined the Tamil Eelam movement in 1990.

Monideepa Sahu is a former banker, who had a whale of a time writing her fantasy adventure novel, Riddle of the Seventh Stone. Her short stories for both adults and young people have been widely anthologized in India and abroad. She enjoys concocting tall tales and can also wax eloquent on deathly serious subjects. She lives in Bangalore with her extended family of people, a vintage PC and countless arthropods.

Neamat Imam is a Bangladeshi-Canadian writer living in Edmonton. He holds a PhD in theatre studies and has taught English at two universities in Bangladesh. He has authored a play, a collection of poetry and two novellas in Bengali. The Black Coat is his first novel.

Agha Shahid Ali, a Kashmiri-American, wrote nine poetry collections, Bone-Sculpture (1972), Begum Akhtar (1979), The Half-Inch Himalayas (1987), A Walk Through the Yellow Pages (1987), A Nostalgist’s Map of America (1991), The Beloved Witness: Selected Poems (1992), The Country Without a Post Office (1997), Rooms Are Never Finished (2002), and Shahid’s own book of ghazals, Call Me Ishmael Tonight (2003, published posthumously). His book of translations of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s selected poems, The Rebel’s Silhouette was published in 1991, and a second edition in 1995. He received fellowships from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Ingram-Merrill Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation,

Acclaimed writer Shamsur Rahman Faruqui is also modern Urdu’s most celebrated critic. HE was editor and publisher of the highly regarded literary journal Shabkhoon, and is the author of a landmark four – volume study of the poet Mir Taqi Mir, and another four – volume work on urdu’s immense oral romance, Dastan -e Amir Hamza. He received the prestigious Saraswati Samman in 1996 for his contribution to Urdu literature. The Mirror of Beauty, originally published in Urdu to huge acclaim, is his first novel.

Shiv K. Kumar has donned many hats and lived many lives: poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, translator and critic. He was born in Lahore, where he received his school and college education. He obtained his doctorate in English Literature from the University of Cambridge. He was Professor of English at Osmania University and the Central University of Hyderabad. He was also Visiting Professor of English in various British, American, European, and Australian Universities.

Shiv K. Kumar has published thirteen volumes of poetry, five novels, two collections of short stories, a play, and a translation of Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poetry into English. His own poems have appeared in several renowned newspapers and magazines like the New York Times, Poetry Review (London), Western Humanities Review, among others-and been broadcast on BBC. In 1978, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (London). He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1987 for his collection of poems Trapfalls in the Sky. In 2001, he was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to literature.

Sunila Gupte is the author of three children’s books, From Pumpkins to Pickles, Quest for the Quetzal Feather and The Adventure of the Missing Dancing Girl. Her short stories for young readers have frequently featured in The Hindu, Deccan Herald and other newspapers.