5 - 7 December 2019 , Thu - Sat.
GALF 2019 : Speakers | Programme | Partners | Performances | Artwork | Videos
Photo Gallery: Inaugural Day | Day 1 | Day 2
Harshad Santosh Pore
Harshad Santosh Pore is an academic, translator and a soft skills trainer. He completed his MA (Honors with Research) in English from University of Mumbai and Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg, Germany.
Harshad loves to learn and likes to teach what he learns. He conducts workshops on Public Speaking. He is currently associated with Department of English, University of Mumbai as a trainer for “Certificate Course for Professional Proficiency in English”. He is pursuing a PhD in Postcolonial Science Fiction. His first translation The Pursuit of Lilliput was published recently. He is currently working on translation of another popular Marathi novel.
Amruta Patil
Writer-painter, Amruta Patil is India’s first female graphic novelist. She is the author of Kari and the Mahabharata-based Parva duology (Adi Parva & Sauptik). Her recent book is Aranyaka: Book of the Forest. She is a Nari Shakti Puraskar awardee.
Inacio A Fernandes
A young passionate entrepreneur and a prolific story-teller is what would best describe Mr Inacio A Fernandes. He comes with a rich IT experience, working with IT Majors like Wipro Infotech, CGI and OPSPL. He has a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from Goa Institute of Management and Masters of Computer Application degrees to his credit. A vociferous reader and a budding author by passion and a techie by qualifications, Inacio inspires youngsters through his workshops and motivational talks to explore their imaginations and handholds them to into writing short stories in fiction. Inacio Fernandes is currently the CEO, and Founder Director of Criador Solutions and Curator of Novella Short Stories- an online portal for authors to publish their work in short story fiction. (https://novella.co.in)
Sanket Mhatre
Sanket Mhatrewas the chief assistant director of Kavyotsav 2001: the first bilingual poetry reading festival of Marathi and Kannada poets. He has held several poetry reading sessions in Mumbai and across Maharashtra. He performed at Kavyahotra 2018, the 72-hour poetry reading festival in Goa with 9 poets from other languages. Widely published, he performs at old age homes under the program (नातवंडांच्या कविता or Poems By Grandchildren). He is a renowned lyricist. His title song for the daily soap 'Radha Hi Bawari' was awarded the best song at Zee Alpha Gaurav. Crossover Poems is his brainchild, that started with The Poetry Club to unify poets from multiple languages, and embracing sensibilities unique to every language. He is also the film director of Kavita Cafe archived on Youtube that captures the best of Marathi poets in recitation
Sushila Sawant Mendes
Sushila Sawant Mendes has a PhD in history from Goa University heads the Department of History at the Government College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Quepem (Goa). Her doctoral dissertation was on the impact of Luis de Menezes Braganza on Goa's anti-colonial struggle, and later became a book: Luis de Menezes Braganza: Nationalism, Secularism and Free-thought in Portuguese Goa (2014). She is currently working on a book on the history of Assolna, Velim, and Cuncolim. Sushila regularly presents papers at various seminars in India and abroad, many of which are included in books on Goa’s history. The Government of Goa has appointed her on the Expert Committee for revision of the Goa Gazetteer. The present Std. X history text of the Goa Board was finalized under her guidance as Chairperson. Mendes is a Trustee of the Manovikas Public Charitable Trust, and a Founder Trustee of Silver Star Appeal.
Tilak Devasher
Tilak Devasher is the author of three books on Pakistan: ‘Pakistan: Courting the Abyss’ (December 2016) that was termed ‘easily the best book on Pakistan’ by a noted Pakistani commentator – Khaled Ahmed; ‘Pakistan: At the Helm’ (July 2018). A Pakistani reviewer in Dawn termed it as ‘a book that any future leader of Pakistan ought to have by their bedside, simply because it is the sum of all that has gone before.’ The third book ‘Pakistan: The Balochistan Conundrum’ was published in July 2019.
Tilak retired as Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat, Government of India in October 2014. He is currently a member of the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) and also a Consultant with the Vivekananda International Foundation.
During his professional career Tilak served in J&K, Delhi and abroad. He specialized in security issues, especially pertaining to India’s neighbourhood. Post retirement, he has continued to take a keen interest in such issues with special focus on Pakistan.
Tilak has taken to writing after his superannuation. Apart from his books, he has written articles for a host of newspapers, magazines and think tank journals. He also appears regularly on TV talk shows.
Tilak is an alumnus of Mayo College, Ajmer and St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.
Rajorshi Chakraborti
Rajorshi Chakraborti has published six novels and a collection of short fiction. He was born in Kolkata and grew up there and in Mumbai, and now lives with his family in Wellington, New Zealand. Two of his earlier novels have been nominated in different categories of the Crossword Book Award. His new novel, Shakti, a supernatural mystery thriller, is due to be published by Penguin Random House in November.
Priyamvada Gopal
Priyamvada Gopal is Reader in Anglophone and Related Literatures at the University of Cambridge, UK and Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge.
She is the author of Literary Radicalism in India (2005) and The Indian English Novel: Nation, History, and Narration (2009). Her new book is Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent (2019). She writes often for the Guardian, al-Jazeera and the Independent and has appeared on the BBC, Democracy Now! and Al-Jazeera English.
Krupa Ge
Krupa Ge is a writer and editor from Madras. Rivers Remember, her first book, on the floods of 2015 in Chennai, was published in June 2019 by Context. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Silverscreen.in. Her reportage and cultural writings have appeared in publications such as The Hindu, The Caravan, The Wire, Firstpost, Ladies Finger, The New Indian Express, etc, over the last eleven years. Her short fiction has appeared in Indian and international publications. She has a novel forthcoming in 2020.
Suneeta Peres da Costa
Suneeta Peres da Costa was born in Sydney, Australia, to parents of Goan origin. She writes fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry. Her debut novel, Homework, was published internationally by Bloomsbury in 1999 and a novella, Saudade (Giramondo, 2018; Transit Books USA & Canada, 2019) – on the legacies of Portuguese colonialism and the Goan diaspora in Angola – is shortlisted for the Australian Prime Minister's Literary Awards 2019 (Fiction). Over the years, she has worked with the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Museum of Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the University of Technology, Sydney, Sydney Review of Books & Mascara Literary Review, among others. Her literary honours include a Fulbright Scholarship, the Australia Council for the Arts BR Whiting Residency, Rome, and, recently, an Asialink Arts Creative Exchange to the Australian and New Zealand Studies Centre at Himachal Pradesh University, India. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Communication from the University of Technology, Sydney, and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, New York.
