6 - 8 December 2018 , Thu - Sat.
GALF 2018 : Speakers | Programme | Partners | Performances | Workshops | Exhibitions | Artwork | Press Release | Videos
Photo Gallery: Inaugural Day | Day 1 | Day 2
Antara Dev Sen
Antara Dev Sen is the founder editor of The Little Magazine, an independent journal of ideas and letters, and the first Indian magazine to focus on contemporary South Asian literature and offer it in English translation. Sen is also a literary critic and translator, a newspaper columnist and commentator on the media, politics and culture. She has edited several books including the TLM Short Stories from South Asia series. Earlier, Sen was Senior Editor of the Hindustan Times and the Indian Express in Delhi. She has also been a Reuters Fellow at Oxford University. Sen is associated with other media, literary, educational, and voluntary organisations in India and overseas. She lives in Delhi.
Martin Macwan
Martin Macwan is a human rights activist based in Gujarat. He has devoted his life and has been working for eradication of untouchability and caste-based discrimination. He is the founder of Navsarjan Trust and many other institutions. He also writes books for children on the issues of equality and non-discrimination. He has been awarded with Robert Kennedy award for human rights; the Gleitsman activist award; and recognized by the Human Rights Watch and others for his work. Through Navsarjan Trust, Martin has been able to do pioneering work for the eradication of Manual scavenging.
Ajai Saxena
Ajai Saxena heads the Forest Department of Goa. He has a master’s in Zoology from the University of Allahabad and worked in the Avifauna Project of BNHS (1980) before joining the Indian Forest Service in 1984. He has worked extensively in various capacities in Andaman & Nicobar, with a short stint at Arunachal Pradesh. While a faculty at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun (1995-2000), he participated in the 16th Indian Scientific Expedition to Antarctica in 1996-97, sailing from Goa to Antarctica, to survey and conduct studies on Antarctic seals and penguins and other marine mammals and oceanic birds. He has also served with the Government of India as Director in the Department of Ocean Development/Ministry of Earth Sciences (2002-07) and Joint Secretary, Department of Food and Public Distribution (2013-15). Other than publications on landscape level tropical forest management and integrated coastal zone management, he writes popular articles on wildlife and conservation. Ajai’s areas of interest include trekking in the Himalaya, Scuba diving, water colour painting, and wildlife photography. He has held exhibitions of his paintings and the last solo show of paintings and photographs was at Kala Academy, Panaji in April 2018. He has travelled widely, in Africa, Australia, Canada, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the US.
Abhay Sardesai
Abhay Sardesai has been the Editor of ART India, the premier art magazine of India, since November 2002. He has been a Visiting Faculty in Aesthetics at the Department of English, University of Mumbai; and the Chair of Humanities, Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture, Mumbai. Abhay has also taught at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS); the Bhau Daji Lad Museum (BDLM); and Shreemati Nathibai Damodar Thackersey (SNDT) Women’s University. He writes in English and translates from Marathi, Konkani and Gujarati. Abhay has written widely on art and literature and read from his work at various places.
Anthony Ranjit Singh Mendonca
Anthony Ranjit Singh Mendonca is a retired Wing Commander, a gallantry awardee, and a helicopter pilot who served with the Indian Air Force for 25 years. As his name suggests he is of a rich genetic pool with a mix of Goan / Punjabi / Finnish blood. ‘Ant’ is the pet name that his mother gave him, and he has have adopted it as his nom de plume. Ant’s thoughts are original and different, unfettered by religion or tradition. He maintains that he is only a conduit wherein his writings come through him and he has understood the extent of the depth what he wrote sometimes much later. He started composing poems in school and continued through National Defence Academy (a very non-conducive environment for poems) as well during his years in the Indian Air Force.
Dattaprasad Shetkar
Dattaprasad Shetkar is Goan by birth and heart. He has travelled extensively as a market researcher and brand consultant across India. Since childhood he was drawn towards artistic expression and appreciation, often dabbling in poetry, theatre, debate, elocution, and singing. Through Exemplar Strategic Solutions, a firm he co-founded, he has developed strategy and design for many brands and managed events like ‘Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Little Champs’ and ‘Jitendra Abhisheki Sangeet Mahotsav’. He founded Susang, a not-for-profit dedicated to art, music, and culture, which has revived Konkani poetry and music from 1950s. He is the organiser and curator of TEDxPanaji, an independently-organised TED event in Goa.
Jayanti Naik
Jayanti Naik is one of the most prolific Konkani writers, translators and folklorists. Since 1989, when her first collection of short stories Garjan was published, she has authored more than 38 books, both scholarly works related to folklore and works of creative literature. Her creative writing comes in an array of genres ranging from the short story and drama to poetry and children’s literature. She is a compiler of Konkani folk tales and she translates books from other languages into Konkani. Besides English, her stories have been translated into Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. Her work is studied at the graduate and post-graduate levels. Jayanti’s poetry book Mirgavenno has been translated into Marathi and her selected short-stories have also appeared in English as The Salt of the Earth: Stories from Rustic Goa (2017). She is recipient of number of state and national level awards, most notable of which are Kala Academy (Goa) Literary Award 2002; Sahitya Akademy (Delhi) Literary Award in 2004 for her collection of short story Athang; the Yashodamini Award in 2009 of the Directorate of Women and Child Development, Government of Goa; and Mandd Shobhann Folklore Award, Mangalore in 1998. She is the Editor of Ananya, a six-monthly literary journal of Goa Konkani Akademi.
Paro Anand
Paro Anand was the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Bal Sahitya Puruskar Award 2017 for her book Wild Child, now published as Like Smoke with additional content. She has written books for children, young adults and adults. Recognized internationally and nationally, she headed the National Centre for Children’s Literature, has interacted with over three lakh people, primarily children in difficult circumstances, and runs a programme, Literature in Action. Paro holds a world record for helping over three thousand children make the world’s longest newspaper. Her book, No Guns at my Son’s Funeral (2005) was on the International Board on Books for Young People Honour List and is translated into German and Spanish. The Little Bird who held the Sky up with his Feet (2013) was on ‘1001 Books to Read Before You Grow Up’, an international gold standard of the world’s best children’s literature. BBC Hindi selected her on their 100 Women #100Women Project – a project highlighting the challenges and achievements of women in India. Her book Wingless has been performed nationally and internationally. She is also the co-author of Two (2017) with Swedish writer, Orjan Perrson​.Her latest book, The Other: Stories of Difference (2018), is a ground-breaking collection of stories dealing with sensitive issues. She has been awarded for her contribution to children’s literature by The Russian Centre for Science and Culture.
Shreevatsa Nevatia
Shreevatsa Nevatia is the author of How to Travel Light: My Memories of Madness and Melancholia (2017) and works as an independent journalist. He was the editor of National Geographic Traveller India and has also worked for publications like Hindustan Times, Outlook and Mumbai Mirror. He lives in Mumbai and Kolkata.
Frederick Noronha
Frederick Noronha is a Brazil-born journalist and alternative publisher from Goa. After a quarter century in journalism, spent writing for national and local media, and covering diverse fields including Goa, the environment, and ICT4D, he set up his alternative book publishing venture Goa, 1556 ( http://goa1556.in) a decade ago. Till date, this venture has published over 120 mainly non-fiction titles on Goa, mostly in English, but also in Konkani, Portuguese and Spanish. He promotes Copyleft, volunteers on the Wikipedia, and has been involved with dozens of cyber initiatives since 1995. Among his books are Another Goa (2009) and the co-edited The Green Pen: Environmental Journalism in India and South Asia (2010). He spends time in mentoring and sharing.
