Archives: Authors

Samaresh Basu (1924-88) was an uncompromising chronicler of the working class. His gritty fiction featured workers, revolutionaries, and radicals who fought society and their own demons and disenchantment. A prolific writer of more than two hundred stories and a hundred novels, Basu also saw two of his novels briefly banned on charges of obscenity and one win the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award.

Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (1838-94) is called the father of the Bengali novel and considered by many as its greatest novelist. He was a key figure of the Bengal Renaissance and closely associated with the Indian independence movement. Durgeshnandini (The Chieftain’s Daughter) was his first novel in Bengali and the first complete novel in Indian literature.

Sidin Vadukut’s bestselling debut novel Dork: The Incredible
Adventures of Robin ‘Einstein’ Varghese was published in January
2010.
Born in a small town near Irinjalakuda in Kerala, Sidin spent most
of his growing years in Abu Dhabi eating falafals. Once even with
sambar. He is an engineer from NIT Trichy and an MBA from IIM
Ahmedabad. Over the last decade he has made auto parts, developed
online trading platforms, worked as a consultant and once had a
sizeable portion of a tree fall on him. Sidin is currently a columnist
and editor with the business newspaper Mint, a cricket columnist for
www.cricinfo.com, occasional contributor to the New York Times
and a full-time freelance Twitterer.
He lives in London with his remarkably patient wife, a plethora of
Apple products and a growing collection of Buddha statues. He blogs
at http://www.whatay.com and tweets with the handle @sidin.

Ashok Sanjay Guha is professor of economics at School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Peter Wohlleben is a German forester and author who writes on ecological themes in popular language. He is the author of the New York Times Bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, which was translated from German into English in 2016.

Jai Arjun Singh has previously authored a book about the cult comedy film Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and edited The Popcorn Essayists, an anthology of personal essays on cinema. His columns, reviews and essays have appeared in Business Standard, The Hindu, Yahoo! India, Tehelka, Caravan, Sunday Guardian, Forbes, Open and Indian Quarterly, among many other publications. Most of his published writings can be found on his widely read culture blog Jabberwock (jaiarjun.blogspot.in).

Edward W. Said was university professor at Columbia University, where he taught English and comparative literature from 1963. He was born in Jerusalem in 1935 and educated at Victoria College,
Cairo; Mount Hermon School, Massachusetts; and at the universities of Princeton and Harvard. In 1974, he was visiting professor of comparative literature at Harvard; in 1975-76, fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Science at Stanford; and in 1979, visiting professor of humanities at Johns Hopkins University. Said was editor of the Arab Studies Quarterly, and a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, New York, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Philosophical Society and the Royal
Society of Literature. He received Harvard University’s Bowdoin Prize and the Lionel Trilling Award in 1976 and in 1994, respectively. In 1998, Said received the Sultan Owais Prize for general cultural achievement; he became an honorary fellow of the Middle Eastern Studies Association in 1999; and in 2002, he received the Prince of Asturias Prize. His books include Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography; Beginnings: Intention and Method; The Question of Palestine; Literature and Society; The World, The Text and the
Critic; Covering Islam; After the Last Sky; Blaming the Victims; Musical Elaborations; Culture and Imperialism; Representations of the Intellectual; Out of Place: A Memoir; The End of the Peace
Process: Oslo and After; and Peace and Its Discontents: Gaza to Jericho 1993-1995.
Edward W. Said died in 2003.

Sukumar Ray was a noted Bengali poet, writer and playwright.
Sampurna Chattarji is a poet, novelist and translator.

Nazia Sayed has been a crime reporter for over a decade now, with experience in television and print journalism. Currently working as a special correspondent with Mumbai Mirror, Nazia is credited with breaking several stories, which includes her exposé on the Mumbai mafia and the ISIS network in the country. Her crime stories have won her accolades in the Indian as well as international press.
Sharmeen Hakim is a legal correspondent with Mumbai Mirror, known for her impeccable court reporting. Apart from the Malegaon blasts and the ‘Mumbai triple blasts’, she covered the 7/11 trial for three years until it concluded last year. Only twenty-four, Sharmeen is widely respected in the fraternity for being one of the most thorough court journalists in the city, and for her strong grasp on the law.