Archives: Authors

Krishna Trilok is the author of the fantasy novel Sharikrida published in 2017. A student of commerce and marketing, his fascination for European and Asian history and mythology, combined with his love of movies and fairy tales, led him to writing. Notes of a Dream is his second work. He lives in Chennai.

NAIYER MASUD is a scholar of Urdu and Persian, a translator (notably of Kafka), and a short story writer. Born in 1936 in Lucknow, Masud started publishing stories only in the 1970s. He retired from Lucknow University as Professor of Persian and lives in the house his father built, appropriately named ‘Adabistan’ (Abode of Literature). He has been translated into English, French, Spanish and Finnish, and was the recipient of the Saraswati Samman in 2007.

MUHAMMAD UMAR MEMON is Professor Emeritus of Urdu Literature and Islamic Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a critic, short story writer, translator and editor of The Annual of Urdu Studies. He has translated half a dozen anthologies of Urdu fictional writing, the latest being Do You Suppose It’s the East Wind?.

Partha Sarathi Bhattacharyya joined Coal India Limited as a management
trainee in 1977 and went on to become its chairman and managing director
in 2006. He engineered the country’s biggest initial public offering-a
Rs 15,000-crore issue that was oversubscribed fifteen times.

Gayatri Rangachari Shah is a journalist and columnist whose work has appeared in both national and international publications like the New York Times. She has a fortnightly column, ‘Flight of Fancy’, in The Hindu. She is a contributing editor at Vogue and Architectural Digest and India head at Tina Brown Live Media, which produces the globally renowned journalism summit Women in the World. Gayatri covers a variety of subjects, including culture, gender, design and education, and has profiled leading personalities around the world. She is a graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She lives in Mumbai with her husband and two children.
Mallika Kapur is an international news journalist. She is currently a senior editor at Bloomberg Live, APAC. In her twenty-year career that spans three countries, she has been a producer, anchor and correspondent for CNN in London, Mumbai and Hong Kong. She has reported extensively on key economic, political, social and gender issues in India and covered some of Asia’s biggest breaking news stories for the network. She has also anchored business news shows and hosted long-form feature programmes. Mallika attended Brown University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She resides in Hong Kong with her husband and two children.

Mallika Kapur is an international news journalist. She is currently a senior editor at Bloomberg Live, APAC. In her twenty-year career that spans three countries, she has been a producer, anchor and correspondent for CNN in London, Mumbai and Hong Kong. She has reported extensively on key economic, political, social and gender issues in India and covered some of Asia’s biggest breaking news stories for the network. She has also anchored business news shows and hosted long-form feature programmes. Mallika attended Brown University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. She resides in Hong Kong with her husband and two children.

A historian, environmentalist and writer based in Chennai, Nanditha Krishna has a PhD in ancient Indian culture from the University of Bombay. She has been a professor and research guide for the PhD programme of C.P.R. Institute of Indological Research, affiliated to the University of Madras. She was the honorary director of the C.P. Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation from 1981 and was elected president in 2013. She is the founder-director of its constituents, including C.P.R. Institute of Indological Research, C.P.R. Environmental Education Centre, C.P. Art Centre and Kanchi Museum of Folk Art. She is the author of several books, including Sacred Plants of India, Sacred Animals of India, Hinduism and Nature, Book of Demons and Book of Vishnu (Penguin India); Madras Then, Chennai Now, Balaji Venkateshwara, Ganesha, Painted Manuscripts of the Sarasvati Mahal Library; and The Arts and Crafts of Tamilnadu and The Art and Iconography of Vishnu-Narayana, among many others, besides numerous research papers and newspaper articles.

Malashri Lal, Professor of English at the University of Delhi, retired from her positions as the Dean of Colleges, Dean Academic Activities & Projects at the same university. Malashri Lal’s specialization is in Literature, Women and Gender Studies about which she has 25 books including The Law of the Threshold: Women Writers in Indian English, Tagore and the Feminine: A Journey in Translation, Chamba-Achamba: Women’s Oral Narratives, and the ‘Goddess Trilogy’ coedited with Namita Gokhale, with significant books on Sita, Radha, and Lakshmi. Malashri’s creative writing, Betrayed by Hope: A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt (co-author Namita Gokhale) won the Kalinga Fiction Award 2021. Her books of poems are Mandalas of Time and Signing in the Air. Recent works include Whispering Mountains: Marvellous Folklore from the Himalayas (co-editor Namita Gokhale. Penguin 2005).Malashri Lal has served as a member of international and national book award juries such as the Commonwealth Writers Prize, London, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, The Hindu Literary Prize, and the Crossword Book Award. Malashri Lal has been a Senior Consultant to the Ministry of Culture. She serves on the advisory committees of several universities and prestigious journals including The Journal of Commonwealth Literature (UK) and Gitanjali and Beyond (Edinburgh). Among other recognitions, Malashri Lal received the Maharani Gayatri Devi Award for Women’s Excellence and The SETU Bilingual Award of Excellence.

After exciting childhood dreams that vacillated between astronomy, zoo keeping and diving with great white sharks, Khushnuma eventually settled for something a tad tamer-advertising. Six years ago, while on a sabbatical, she rediscovered her love for writing something more than creative briefs and PowerPoint presentations. Advertising and writing apart, she is extremely passionate about animal welfare, sustainability and of course, regular sabbaticals.

Ruby Lal is an award-winning historian of India and professor of South Asian history at Emory
University whose writing has appeared in Time, BBC History, and Literary Hub. She is the author
of Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her most recent book, Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan, was longlisted for the prestigious Cundill History Prize and received praise from the BBC, Wall Street Journal, and Times Literary Supplement, among others. She divides her time between Atlanta, Georgia, and Delhi, India.

Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer whose articles and art have appeared in the New York
Times, New York Review of Books, Paris Review, Rolling Stone, and The New Yorker. Her work
has been nominated for three Emmys, has been longlisted for the National Book Award, and is in
the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. She lives in New York City.