India

ALEXANDER, Meena

Birth date: February 17, 1951
Birthplace: Allahabad, India
Education: University of Khartoum, B.A. (with first-class honors), 1969; University of Nottingham, Ph.D., 1973.
Professional Career: She teaches in the writing program at Columbia University. In 1999, she was awarded a distinguished professorship by the City University of New York.

Works

Manhattan Music. San Francisco: Mercury House, 1997.
The Shock of Arrival: Reflections on Postcolonial Experience. Boston: South End Press, 1996.
River and Bridge (poems). Toronto/Rupa, New Delhi: TSAR Press, 1995.
Fault Lines: A Memoir. New York: Feminist Press, 1993.
Night-scene, the Garden. New York: Red Dust, 1992.
Nampally Road (novel). San Francisco: Mercury House, 1991.
House of a Thousand Doors (Poems/Prose). Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1988.
The Poetic Self. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1980.
Stone Roots (poems). New Delhi: Arnold Heinemann. 1980.
I Root My Name (poems). Calcutta: United Writers Selling Agents, 1977.
The Bird's Bright Ring: A Long Poem. Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1976.

Web site: http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Alexander.html

APPACHANA, Anjana

Birth date: May 10, 1956
Birthplace: Mercara, India
Education: Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya; Delhi University, B.A. (with honors), 1976; Jawaharlal Nehru University, M.A., 1978; Pennsylvania State University, M.F.A., 1988.
Professional Career: Appachana is the recipient of an O.Henry Festival Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing fellowship.

Works

Listening Now. NY: Random House, 1997.
"Sharmaji" In Mirrorwork: 50 years of Indian Writing: 1947-1977. Eds. Salman Rushdie with Elizabeth West. NY: Holt, 1997.
Incantations, Virago. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991.

BADAMI, Anita Rau

Birth date: 1964
Birthplace: Rourkela in the eastern state of Orisson in India
Education: She earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Madras, and studied journalism in Sophia College, Bombay.
Professional Career: She worked as a copywriter for advertising agencies in Bombay, Bangalore and Madras, and wrote stories for children's magazines.

Works

The Hero's Walk. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2001.
Tamarind Men. New York City: Penguin, 1996.
From Sundaramma's Kitchen. A short story published in Rungh.
The Dreamers. A short story published in Aaj magazine.

Interview: http://www.janmag.com/profiles/raubadami.html

BALDWIN, Shauna Singh

Birth date:
Birthplace: Montreal, Canada (She was raised in India.)
Education: M.B.A. at Marquette University, 1983.
Professional Career: She was an independent public radio producer from 1991-1994. Shauna's awards include the 1995 Writer's Union of Canada Award for Short Prose, India's international Jawaharlal Nehru Award (Gold Medal) for Public Speaking in 1973, the national Shastri Award (Silver Medal) for English Prose in 1974, and the CBC Radio/Canada Council Literary Award for 1997.

Works

What the Body Remembers. NY: Knopf, 1999.
English Lessons and Other Stories (A collection of stories about Indian women.) Frederiction, Canada: Goose Lane Editions, 1996.

BANERJI, Sara

Birth date: June 6, 1932
Birthplace: Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire, England
Education: Convent Schools in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), Scotland, and England
Professional Career: Worked as a waitress, courier for a travel agent, riding teacher, and gardener; exhibiting artist and lecturer on writing, cooking, and gardening.

Works

Writing on Skin. London: Doubleday, 1993.
Absolute Hush. London: Black Swan, 1992.
Shining Agnes. London: Gollancz, 1989.
The Tea-Planter's Daughter. London: Gollancz, 1988.
Cobwebwalking. Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, 1987.
The Wedding of Jayanthi Mandel. London: Gollancz, 1987.

BEDI, Susham

Birth date:
Birthplace: Ferozpur, Punjab, India
Education: Delhi University and Punjab University
Professional Career: As a teenager, she was a leading actress in Hindi dramas on All India Radio and later on television. She has served as correspondent for the Times of India and has been teaching Hindi Language and Literature at Columbia University in New York since 1985.

Works

Itar (The Other). 1992.
Lautna (The Returning). 1992.
Havan (The Fire Sacrifice). Trans. David Rubin.Oxford, Portsmouth, NH: 1989.

BHATT, Sujatas

Birth date: 1956
Birth place: Ahmedabad
Education: MFA degree at the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa.
Professional Career: She was professor and writer-in-residence at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, in 1992. She has translated Gujarati poetry into English for the Penguin anthology of Contemporary Indian Women Poets.

Works

Augatora to be published by Carcanet Press in Feb 2000.
The Stinking Rose. New Delhi: Carcanet Press/Penguin, 1995.
Monkey Shadows. New Delhi: Carcanet Press/Penguin, 1991.
Brunizem. New Delhi: Carcanet Press/Penguin, 1988.

CHUGTAI, Ismati

Birth date: 1915
Birthplace: Urdu
Education:
Professional Career:

Works

The Crooked Line. Trans. Tahira Naqvi. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1995.
The Heart Breaks Free & The Wild One. Trans. Tahira Naqvi. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1993.
The Quilt and other Stories. Trans. Tahira Naqvi.. New Delhi: Kali for Women 1990.

DE, Shobha

Birth date:
Birthplace:
Education:
Professional Career: De has had diverse careers in modeling, copywriting, and editing. She was the first editor of Stardust and Society. Her works are somewhat controversial due to the erotic content.

Works

SpeedPost. Letters to my Children. New Delhi: Penguin, 1999.
Selective Memory. New Delhi: Penguin, 1998.
Second Thoughts. New Delhi: Penguin, 1996.
Shooting from the Hip. Delhi: UBS, 1994.
Sultry Days. New Delhi: Penguin, 1994.
Sisters. New Delhi: Penguin, 1992.
Starry Nights. New Delhi: Penguin, 1991.
Socialite Evenings. New Delhi: Penguin, 1989.

DESAI, Anita

Birth date: June 24, 1937
Birthplace: Mussoorie, India
Education: A.B. University of Delhi
Professional Career: She has taught at Mt. Holyoke and Smith College and serves as a member of the Advisory Board for English in New Delhi. She currently teaches writing at MIT.

Works

Journey to Ithaca. New York: Knopf, 1995.
The Village By the Sea: An Indian Family Story. New Delhi: Penugin India, 1992.
Baumgartner's Bombay. London: Heinemann, 1988.
Bye Bye Blackbird. Delhi: Vision Books, 1985.
Where Shall We Go This Summer. 1985.
In Custody. London: Heinemann, 1984.
Cry the Peacock. Delhi: Vision Books, 1983.
Clear Light of Day. NY: Harper & Row, 1980.
Games at Twilight and Other Stories. London: Heinemann,1978.
Fire on the Mountain. Delhi: Allied, 1977.
The Peacock Garden. Jaipur: India Book House, 1974.

Web page: http://web.mit.edu/humanistic/www/faculty/desai.html

DESAI, Kiran

Birth date: 1971
Birthplace: India
Education: In India, England, and the United States ( Columbia University)
Professional Career: An excerpt of her first novel was published in the New Yorker India
Fiction issue, and in Mirrorwork, Salman Rushdie's controversial anthology of 50 years of Indian writing.

Works

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. London: Faber and Faber, 1998.

DEVI, Mahasweta

Birth date: 1926
Birthplace: Dhaka, India
Education: Vishyabharati University, B.A. (honors), Calcutta University, M.A.
Professional Career: Mahasweti Devi writes satirical fiction. She received the Jnanpith Award (India's highest literary award) in 1996 and the Magsaysay Award (the Asian equivalent of the Nobel prize) in 1997. For her activist work among dispossessed tribal communities, she received the Padmasree Award.

Works

Old Women: Selected Work of Mahasweta Devi. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1999.
Bitter Soil. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1998.
Breast Stories. Trans. Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1997. (This book contains the translation of "choli ke piche" (Behind the Bodies)
Mother of 1084. Trans. Shamik Bandyopadhyay. Calcutta Books: Seagull, 1997.
Basai Tudu (Contains "Operation Basai Tudu" & "Draupadi"). Trans. Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak. and Shamik Bandyopadhyay. Calcutta: Thima, 1993.
Imaginary Maps (Contains"The Hunt," "Doulat the bountiful", "Terodactyle, Puron Sahay and Pirtha"). Trans. Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak. Calcutta: Thima.1993.
Of Women, Outcasts, Peasants, and Rebels. Trans. Kalpana Bardhan. Berkeley: University of California, 1990.
Etoyaa Munda Won the Battle. Trans. Meenakshi Chatterjee. N.B.T.,1989.
Five Plays (It includes "Mother of 1084", "Aajir", "Baayen", "Urbashi and Johni" and "Water"). Trans. Shamik Bandyopadhyay. Calcutta: Seagull, 1986.
Ek-kori's Dream. Trans. By Lila Majumdar. N.B.T., 1976.

DIVAKARUNI, Chitra Banerjee

Birth date: 1953
Birthplace: Calcutta, India
Education: Wright State University, M.A.; University of California at Berkeley, Ph.D.
Professional Career: Worked with Afghani women refugees and women from dysfunctional families, as well as shelters for battered women. President of MAITRI, a South Asian woman's service which she help found in 1991. Taught at Foothill College in the San Francisco bay area for 20 years. Currently teaching creative writing at the University of Houston. Received the 1996 American Book Award, the bay Area Book Reviewers and the PEN Oakland awards for fiction for her book of short stories, Arranged Marriage.

Works

Sister of my Heart. New York: Doubleday, 1999.
Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter. A short story in Atlantic Monthly, April, 1998.
The Mistress of Spices. New York: Anchor, 1997.
Arranged Marriage. New York: Doubleday, 1995.

FUTEHALLY, Shama

Birth date: 1952
Birthplace: Bombay, India
Education: University of Bombay and Leeds.
Professional Career: Taught English and Cultural history in Bombay and Ahmedabad.

Works

In the Dark of the Heart. Harper Collins, International, 1996.
Tara Lane. Delhi: Ravi Dayal, 1993.
Sorry, Best Friend.

GANESAN, Indira

Birth date: 1960
Birthplace: Srirangam, India
Education: Vassar College, Iowa's Writer's Workshop (received a M.F.A.).
Professional Career: She is on the faculty of the English Department at Southhampton College. In 1997-1998 Bunting fellow at Radcliffe College. She was a Granta Best Young American novelist Award finalist for her first novel, The Journey.

Works

Inheritance. London: Secker and Warburg, 1997.
The Journey. New York: Knopf, 1990; London: Secker and Warburg, 1990; London: Minerva, 1992.

GOUR, Neelam Saran

Birth date: 1955
Birthplace:
Education:
Professional Career:

Works

Winter Companions and Other Stories. New Delhi: Penguin, 1997.
Speaking of 62. New Delhi: Penguin, 1995.
Grey Pigeon and Other Stories. New Delhi: Penguin, 1993.

GUPTA, Sunetra

Birth date: 1965
Birthplace: Calcutta
Education: Princeton University, A.B., 1987. London University, PhD., 1992.
Professional Career: Research assistant for the Department of Biology at Imperial College in London from 1988-89. Wellcome Training Fellow in biology at the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford in England from 1992-95. Junior research fellow at Merton College in Oxford, England from 1993-96. Currently researching the transmission dynamics of HIV and malaria.

Works

A Sin of Colour. New Delhi: Penguin, 1999.
Moonlight into Marzipan. New Delhi: Penguin India, 1993.
The Glassblower's Breath. New York: Grove Press, 1993; New Delhi: Penguin India, 1993.
Memories of Rain. New York: Weidenfeld, 1992.

HARIHARAN, Githa

Birth date: 1954
Birthplace: Bombay, India
Education: Studied in the U.S.
Professional Career: Hariharan works with public television in the United States, editor, freelance writer, received the Commonwealth Prize for the best first novel for The Thousand Faces of Night, in 1993.

Works

When Dreams Travel. Picador, 1999. [Review in India Today]
The Ghosts of Vasu Master. New Delhi:Viking Penguin, 1994.
The Art of Dying (Collection of Short Stories). New Delhi: Penguin, 1993.
The Thousand Faces of Night. New Delhi: Viking Penguin, 1992.
A Southern Harvest. Katha, New Delhi, 1993.

JHABVALA, Ruth Prawer

Birth date: 1927
Birthplace: Germany
Education: Mary Queen College, London University.
Professional Career: Her published works include novels, television, and screen scripts. In 1975, she won the Booker Prize for Heat and Dust and has two Academy Awards for her screenplays--A Room With a View and Howard's End. Jhabvala is also a frequent contributor to the New Yorker.

Works

Shards of Memory. London: Murray, 1995.
Poet and Dancer. New ed. London: Penguin, 1994.
The Three Continents. London: John Murray, 1987.
Out of India. New York: Morrow, 1986.
In Search of Love and Beauty. London: J. Murray, 1983.
How I Became a Holy Mother and Other Stories. London: John Murray, 1976.
Heat and Dust. London: John Murray, 1975.
A New Dominion. London: John Murray, 1972.
An Experience of India. London: John Murray, 1972.
A Stronger Climate: Nine Short Stories. London: John Murray, 1968.
A Backward Place. New York: Norton, 1965.
Like, Birds, Like Fishes and Other Stories. London: John Murray, 1963.
Get Ready for Battle. London: John Murray, 1962.
The Householder. London: John Murray, 1960.
Amrita. New York: Norton, 1958.
Esmond in India. London: Allen and Unwin, 1958.
The Nature of Passion. London: Allen and Unwin, 1956.
To Whom She Will. London: Allen and Unwin. 1955.

JUNG, Anees

Birth date:
Birthplace:
Education:
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Works

Seven Sisters: Among the Women of South Asia. New Delhi: Penguin, 1994.
Night of the New Moon: Encounters with Muslim Women in India. New Delhi: Penguin, 1993.
The Song of India. New Delhi: Himalayan Books, 1990.
Khushwant Singh. New Delhi: Himalayan Books. 1990.
Unveiling India. New Delhi: Penguin, 1987.
When a Place Becomes a Person. New Delhi: Vikas, 1977.

KAMANI, Ginu

Birth date: 1962
Birthplace: Bombay
Education: Master's Degree in Creative Writing at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Professional Career: She has published fiction and essays in various anthologies, literary journals, newspapers, and magazines. She is currently a Writer in Residence at Mills College, Oakland.

Works

Junglee Girl. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1995.

KANNA, Lakshmi

Birth date: 1943
Birthplace:
Education:

Professional Career: Also works under the pseudonym Kaveri.

Works

India gate and Other Stories. Trans. by the author. New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1993.
Parijata and Other Stories. Trans. by the author. New Delhi: National Publishing House, 1922.
Rhythms: a Collection of Short Fiction. New Delhi: Vikas, 1986.
Going Home. Translated from the original Tamil "Athukku Pogannum" by the author. Review from India Club.

KAPUR, Manju

Birth date:
Birthplace: Amritsar, India
Education:
Professional Career: Manju Kapur is a professor of English at Miranda House in Delhi. Her first novel, Difficult Daughters, received the Commonwealth Award for the Eurasian region.

Works

Difficult Daughters. India: Penguin, 1998.

KARMARKAR, Basanti

Birth date:
Birthplace:
Education:
Professional Career:

Works

Love's Fearful Passage. Singapore: Yang Publishers, 1993.
Love in the Throes of Tradition. Calcutta: Writer's Workshop, 1990.

LAHIRI, Jhumpa

Birth date: 1967
Birthplace: London
Education: Barnard College, B.A. (English Literature), Boston University, M.A. (English), M.A. (Creative Writing), Ph.D (Renaissance Studies). Accepted to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.
Professional Career: Is a research assistant, writer for The New Yorker. Received the O. Henry Award and the Best American Short Stories for her story Interpreter of Maladies. In 1999, was chosen among the "20 best young writers in America." 'Interpreter of Maladies' is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, 2000.

Works

Holy Song. Rizzoli, 2000.
Interpreter of Maladies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

MARKANDAYA, Kamala Purnaiya

Birth date: 1924-
Birthplace:
Education: Attended the University of Madras.
Professional Career: Worked for a small newspaper in India before moving to England in 1948. Nectar in the Sieve was recognized as the Notable Book of 1955 and received the National Association of Independent Schools Award in 1967.

Works

Pleasure City. London: Chatto & Windus, 1982; Shalimar, New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
The Golden Honeycomb. London: Chatto and Windus, 1977.
The Nowhere Man. New York: John Day, 1972; London: Allen Cane, 1973; New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1975.
The Coffer Dams. Delhi: Hindi Pocket Books, 1969; New York: John Day, 1969; London: Hamish Hamiliton, 1969; New York: Fawcett, 1971.
A Handful of Rice. New York: John Day, 1966; Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1967; Delhi: Orient Paperbacks, 1985.
Nectar in a Sieve. London: Putnam, 1954; New York: John Day, 1954; Bombay: Jaico, 1965; New York: Signet, 1967.