5 - 7 December 2019 , Thu - Sat.
GALF 2019 : Speakers | Programme | Partners | Performances | Artwork | Videos
Photo Gallery: Inaugural Day | Day 1 | Day 2
Masood Hussain
Masood Hussain, a prolific water colourist from Kashmir, collaborated in 2019 with the haikuist Gabriel Rosenstock from Ireland to publish "Walk with Mahatma," celebrating the sesquicentenary of Gandhi's birth. Masood honed his skills at Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Arts, Mumbai. He teaches at the Institute of Music & Fine Arts in Srinagar, Kashmir, where he was born and raised. “Kashmir draws us to imagine ourselves,” Masood says, “amidst her lush shades of green, crystal clear lakes, gushing streams, snow-capped peaks—a paradise that has sadly been in pathos now for over a generation. We need a Mahatma.”
Akshay Singh
Akshay Singh received the Mohammed S Farsi Foundation Scholarship for Arts to pursue an MA in Screenwriting from the National Film & Television School, UK. Back in India he wrote and produced the feature films - ‘The Gold-Laden Sheep and The Sacred Mountain’ & ‘Mehsampur’. An enthusiast of stories on the fringes, Akshay was born in Varanasi and now calls Goa home.
Abdullah Khan
Abdullah Khan is a Mumbai based novelist, screenwriter, literary critic and banker. Born in a village near Motihari, Bihar, Abdullah was initially educated in madarsa (Islamic seminary) and Urdu medium school. In the mid-1990s, he discovered that George Orwell was born in Motihari. And, this Orwell’s connection with his home district drew him towards literature. Abdullah’s writings have appeared in Brooklyn Rail (New York), Wasafiri (London), The Hindu (India), The Daily Star (Bangladesh) and Friday Times (Pakistan) among others. His debut film as a screenwriter, Viraam, was released in the theatres in 2017. Patna Blues is his first novel which is being translated into many languages including Hindi, Urdu, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Bangla and Tamil.
Arjun Subramaniam
Air Vice Marshal Arjun Subramaniam is a retired fighter pilot from the IAF who has flown MiG-21s and Mirage-2000s. He is also a military historian, academic and strategic commentator with an interesting post-retirement career. He has been a Visiting Fellow at Harvard and Oxford universities and Visiting Professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is currently a Visiting Prof at Ashoka and Jindal Universities and has lectured extensively at war colleges in India and the US and at a wide range of Universities and think tanks in the US and UK including Harvard, MIT, Georgetown University, Oxford, Carnegie Endowment, RUSI and IISS. He is the author of ‘India’s Wars: A Military History 1947-1971 with the sequel being published next year. He writes extensively in the public domain on diverse strategic and national security issues.
Ritwik Sanyal
Pandit Ritwik Sanyal, is one of the most eminent Dhrupad singers,disciple of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and Zia Fariduddin Dagar ,he got Sangeet Natak Academy Aword for Music in 2013, he is also a great academic, writer and philosopher.
Retired Professor of the Banars Hidu University, where he was vocal teacher in the faculty of performing arts for 39 years, he has been also Dean of the faculty and Head of the department for several years.
He has been travelling across the globe since childoohod and tha is why he received a very special input to express with his own words and philosophy the ancient musical tradition of India.
His father was an eclectic philosopher and scholar, Prof. Batuk Sanyal and his mother, Shri Mati Ranu Sanyal a great writer and singer.
He assimilated his parents gifts and the Dhrupad tradition with a deep research in the indian tradition, both musical and philosophical , becoming a unique Master that combines the finess of singing with the logical way of Philosophy.
His master work Philosophy of Music is a book where he explains the sublime concept of music in philosophycal language.
Mitra Phukan
Mitra Phukan is a writer, translator and columnist who lives in Guwahati, Assam. Her published literary works include four children’s books, a biography, two novels, “The Collector’s Wife” and “A Monsoon of Music”, several volumes of translations of other novels and a collection of fifty of her columns, “Guwahati Gaze”. Her most recent works are a collection of her own short stories, “A Full Night’s Thievery”, (Speaking Tiger 2016) and another translated book, “Aghoni Bai and Other Stories” ( 2019). She writes extensively on Indian music as a reviewer and essayist. Her works have been translated into many languages, and several of her works are taught in colleges and Universities. As a translator herself, she has put across the works of some of the best known writers of fiction in Asomiya into English. Her column “All Things Considered” in The Assam Tribune is very widely read.
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.
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.
Stacy Rodrigues
Stacy Rodrigues resides in Margao Goa. She completed her education in music. Being visually impaired, she is an artist by profession for the past 6 years and as of now, she is a full-time yoga instructor & a spiritual counsellor. So far she has held 4 solo exhibitions and she has been part of a few group exhibitions in Goa. In the year 2012, on a small scale, she released her poem book entitled "reflections". Recently she has written her first novel "In Search Of" which was launched in the month of October 2019. In Search Of is a book about a visually impaired individual who dared to live a normal life. The experience that life put her through taught her the meaning of life and helped her find her true self.
Damyanti Biswas
Damyanti Biswas is a writer, editor and social activist. Her literary crime novel You Beneath Your Skin published by Simon & Schuster is just out. Damyanti is also one of the editors of the international Forge Literary Magazine and works for a charity helping Delhi’s underprivileged children. She speaks passionately on the subjects of gender, violence, race and poverty. Earlier drafts of You Beneath Your Skin, were long-listed for the Mslexia Novel Competition and the Bath Novel Award, and the writing was helped by a grant from the National Arts Council of Singapore. Damyanti’s short stories have been published in anthologies and journals around the world, including Litro, Griffith Review, Bluestem and others. She has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
