Srinivas Udgata is a poet, story and drama writer, painter, novelist and translator from Odisha India. Some of his notable works include Purnima, Parbati, Dibya Purusha, Kipari Kahibi Mu, Nila Nayana Tale Kanta and Sesha Ratrira Prathama Sakala. He has been awarded the Sarala Award (2002) and Padma Shri (2008).
Louise Welsh is the author of eight novels including The Cutting Room, The Plague Times Trilogy and The Second Cut. Louise has a ten-year practice in opera with composer Stuart MacRae. Their most recent opera is Anthropocene. Louise was co-founder and director of the Empire Café, an award winning multi-disciplinary exploration of Scotland’s relationship with…
Farrukh Dhondy is a British-Indian writer. Born in 1944 in Pune, he studied in Pune, Cambridge and Leicester Universities. He writes fiction, non-fiction, journalism, stage drama, has written extensively for TV and screenplays. His latest books are a second translation of Rumi and a life-memoir entitled Fragments Against my Ruin.
Tracy Chevalier FRSL is the author of 10 novels, including the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring, which has sold over 5 million copies and was made into a film starring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth. Tracy grew up in Washington DC and moved to the UK in the 1980s. She and her husband divide…
Gopalkrishna Gandhi (b. 1945) read English Literature and History at St Stephen’s College, Delhi University. He has been in administrative positions in Tamil Nadu and in Delhi, as a member of the Indian Administrative Service. He was Secretary to the President of India (1997-2000), Director of The Nehru Centre in the High Commission of India,…
Taro Sindik is a Hindi writer and poet from Arunachal Pradesh. Taro is on one of the few Akademi awardees from the State to win the award for Hindi from North East region. The first time he tried writing a poem was in the second semester of his master’s degree in 2007 during literary competition.…
Bangalore based historian, Dr. Vikram Sampath is the author of six acclaimed books: Splendours of Royal Mysore: the Untold Story of the Wodeyars; “My Name Is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician”, “Voice of the Veena: S Balachander -‐ A Biography” and “Women of the Records.” His latest books are the two-volume biography— “Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past” and “Savarkar: A Contested Legacy” from Penguin…
Divya Dutta is an actor, author and now a poet too. The talented actor won a National Award for best actor (female) in a supporting role in 2018. She has acted in more than 100 feature films in Hindi and Punjabi language, few notable films being Veer- Zara, Bhaag Milkha Bhag, My Friend Pinto, Stanley…
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. He studied at the universities of Delhi and Oxford and published the first of eight novels, The Circle of Reason, in 1986. The first novel in his Ibis trilogy, Sea of Poppies, was shortlisted for the Man Booker…
Sachidananda Mohanty was formerly Professor and Head, Department of English, University of Hyderabad, Vice Chancellor of the Central University of Orissa and Governing Board Member of Auroville Foundation, administered by the MHRD, Government of India. He is the recipient of several national and international awards including those from the British Council, Charles Wallace, the Salzburg, the Katha and the…