India’s big month of literary festivals, aka January, will end with the Kolkata Literary Meet, aka Kalam, which runs from January 23 to 27. Like last year, all the sessions will be held at the magnificent Victoria Memorial.
Shereen El Feki spent five years travelling all over the Arab region, talking to people about sex. This research went into making her first book, Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World. For El Feki, this seemingly personal information is revelatory in what it uncovers about the political. The half-Welsh half-Egyptian El Feki has earned herself nominations for the Guardian First Book Award and The Orwell Prize for her work.
Joanna Rakoff wrote an award-winning novel, A Fortunate Age, but is perhaps best known for her memoir, My Salinger Year. The memoir tells the coming-of-age story of Rakoff as a 23-year-old employee at a literary agency whose services were used by J.D. Salinger. Rakoff, who used to answer Salinger’s fan-mail, lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Mira Jacob founded Pete's Reading Series in Brooklyn, which has featured acclaimed writers reading their fiction, non-fiction, and poetry to live audiences for over a decade. Jacob currently teaches fiction at the New York University. The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing is her first novel. She has been compared to Jhumpa Lahiri because of the similarity in subject matter - Indian families living in the USA - but has been noted for her original style.
Aatish Taseer, journalist and writer, has been called 'the most distinctive voice of his generation.' He has published a highly well-regarded translation of celebrated Urdu writer Sadat Hasan Manto's stories, and Stranger To History, a part memoir, part travelogue about his identity as the son of an Indian Sikh mother and a Pakistani Muslim father. His novels are The Temple-goers, Noon, and, most recently, The Way Things Were.
Aliette Armel writes novels, essays, and criticism. She is the biographer of the renowned French writer Marguerite Duras. The English translation of one of her novels, Le Voyage de Bilqîs, is available as Love, The Painter's Wife, and the Queen of Sheba. It alternates between the story of the painter Piero della Francesca and his wife, Silvia in Renaissance Italy, and the tale of the Queen of Sheba. Armel co-hosts discussions about Indian literature in Paris, and has also written a book about Pondicherry.
Renu Balakrishnan's debut novel is Four Aleys, about the lives of four Syrian Christian women, all named Aley. The story is told through the perspective of the youngest Aley, who witnesses the disintegration of a feudal set-up and the struggles of the strong women in her family against patriarchal power. She teaches a creative writing class in Mumbai, and is working on her second novel.
Zia Haider Rahman was born in rural Bangladesh, and educated at Oxford, Cambridge, Munich, and Yale. He has been an investment banker and an international human rights lawyer. His debut novel, In the Light of What We Know, was published in 2014. His formidable education, different careers, and experiences of being a South Asian in the West are reflected in the novel's themes and characters.
Bani Basu is a pre-eminent novelist writing in Bengali. Her career has spanned over three decades, during which she has written translations, essays, short stories, and novels. Six of her works have been translated into English so far, including the well known Maitreya Jatak, or The Birth of the Maitreya. The novel uses the traditional jataka format to imagine the time that the Buddha was alive and teaching, and examines social issues that remain relevant to this day.
Jerzy Jarniewicz is a professor of English, scholar, translator, and poet. He has translated over twenty books, including Seamus Heaney's essays. He is one of Poland's most highly acclaimed poets, and has published twelve collections of poetry, and nine critical books on literature.
Sandip Roy is a widely published commentator, journalist, and radio host. He is an editor at FirstPost.com, and has contributed to several anthologies, including Out! Stories from the New Queer India and The Erotic and the Phobic. His first novel, Don't Let Him Know, is set in India and the United States, and tells the story of an immigrant Indian family.
Shereen El Feki spent five years travelling all over the Arab region, talking to people about sex. This research went into making her first book, Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World. For El Feki, this seemingly personal information is revelatory in what it uncovers about the political. The half-Welsh half-Egyptian El Feki has earned herself nominations for the Guardian First Book Award and The Orwell Prize for her work.
Joanna Rakoff wrote an award-winning novel, A Fortunate Age, but is perhaps best known for her memoir, My Salinger Year. The memoir tells the coming-of-age story of Rakoff as a 23-year-old employee at a literary agency whose services were used by J.D. Salinger. Rakoff, who used to answer Salinger’s fan-mail, lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Mira Jacob founded Pete's Reading Series in Brooklyn, which has featured acclaimed writers reading their fiction, non-fiction, and poetry to live audiences for over a decade. Jacob currently teaches fiction at the New York University. The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing is her first novel. She has been compared to Jhumpa Lahiri because of the similarity in subject matter - Indian families living in the USA - but has been noted for her original style.
Aatish Taseer, journalist and writer, has been called 'the most distinctive voice of his generation.' He has published a highly well-regarded translation of celebrated Urdu writer Sadat Hasan Manto's stories, and Stranger To History, a part memoir, part travelogue about his identity as the son of an Indian Sikh mother and a Pakistani Muslim father. His novels are The Temple-goers, Noon, and, most recently, The Way Things Were.
Aliette Armel writes novels, essays, and criticism. She is the biographer of the renowned French writer Marguerite Duras. The English translation of one of her novels, Le Voyage de Bilqîs, is available as Love, The Painter's Wife, and the Queen of Sheba. It alternates between the story of the painter Piero della Francesca and his wife, Silvia in Renaissance Italy, and the tale of the Queen of Sheba. Armel co-hosts discussions about Indian literature in Paris, and has also written a book about Pondicherry.
Renu Balakrishnan's debut novel is Four Aleys, about the lives of four Syrian Christian women, all named Aley. The story is told through the perspective of the youngest Aley, who witnesses the disintegration of a feudal set-up and the struggles of the strong women in her family against patriarchal power. She teaches a creative writing class in Mumbai, and is working on her second novel.
Zia Haider Rahman was born in rural Bangladesh, and educated at Oxford, Cambridge, Munich, and Yale. He has been an investment banker and an international human rights lawyer. His debut novel, In the Light of What We Know, was published in 2014. His formidable education, different careers, and experiences of being a South Asian in the West are reflected in the novel's themes and characters.
Bani Basu is a pre-eminent novelist writing in Bengali. Her career has spanned over three decades, during which she has written translations, essays, short stories, and novels. Six of her works have been translated into English so far, including the well known Maitreya Jatak, or The Birth of the Maitreya. The novel uses the traditional jataka format to imagine the time that the Buddha was alive and teaching, and examines social issues that remain relevant to this day.
Jerzy Jarniewicz is a professor of English, scholar, translator, and poet. He has translated over twenty books, including Seamus Heaney's essays. He is one of Poland's most highly acclaimed poets, and has published twelve collections of poetry, and nine critical books on literature.
Sandip Roy is a widely published commentator, journalist, and radio host. He is an editor at FirstPost.com, and has contributed to several anthologies, including Out! Stories from the New Queer India and The Erotic and the Phobic. His first novel, Don't Let Him Know, is set in India and the United States, and tells the story of an immigrant Indian family.
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