5 - 7 December 2019 , Thu - Sat.
GALF 2019 : Speakers | Programme | Partners | Performances | Artwork | Videos
Photo Gallery: Inaugural Day | Day 1 | Day 2
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.
Mukul Kumar
Mukul Kumar is a bureaucrat and and an author as well. He belongs to the 1997 batch of the Civil Services. An Indian Railway Traffic Service officer, he is at present working in New Delhi. He has studied Humanities from Delhi University, graduating from Kirori Mal College. He has also studied Public Administration at the prestigious Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, which got him Master of Philosophy in Social Sciences.
He has been honoured with the National award for outstanding service to the Indian Railways .
His works as an author include two novels, ‘As Boys Become Men’ published in 2016, and ‘Seduction by Truth’ in 2018.
Mukul began his literary journey with the publication of an anthology of English poems ‘The Irrepressible Echoes’ in 2012.
Tweet the author at @writermukul, mail him at mail him at mukulkumar1703@gmail.com, message him at https://www.facebook.com/ writermukulkumar/ and visit http://www.authormukul.com.
Samrat Choudhury a.k.a. Samrat X
Samrat Choudhury is an author and journalist, and a former editor of daily newspapers in India’s major metropolises, Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. His first novel, The Urban Jungle, was published by Penguin Books in 2011. Some of his literary essays and short stories have appeared in translation in German, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. His latest publication is an edited anthology titled Insider/Outsider, on this issue with relation to Northeast India, of which he is one of the two editors. He has recently relaunched East Wind, an independent quarterly for Northeast India, in collaboration with its founder.
Samrat was the Asian Leadership Fellow from India at the International House of Japan in Tokyo in 2018 and a Chevening Scholar at the University of Westminster, London, in 2019.
Kaustubh Naik
Kaustubh Naik is has an MA in Performance Studies from Ambedkar University Delhi and is currently a research scholar in Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi. He was named the DD Kossambi Fellow by the Directorate of Art and Culture, Govt of Goa for the period 2016- 18. His op-eds on Goan politics and culture have been published in The Goan, The Caravan, Firstpost, and Aksharnama. He is also a theatre maker and currently heads the Hauns Sangeet Natya Mandal, the oldest running theatre company in Goa. His stage adaptation of Amita Kanekar's 'A Spoke In The Wheel' recently opened to critical acclaim and has won several awards.
Samhita Arni
When she was eight, Samhita Arni started writing and illustrating her first book. The Mahabharata - A Child's View went on to be published in seven language editions and sell 50,000 copies worldwide. Samhita's second book, Sita's Ramayana, a graphic novel developed in collaboration with Patua artist Moyna Chitrakar, was on the New York Times Bestseller list for Graphic Novels. Her third book, The Missing Queen, has been published by Penguin (Viking) and Zubaan. Samhita's fourth book, The Prince, has been published by Juggernaut.
Sudeep Sen
Sudeep Sen is widely recognised as a major new generation voice in world literature and “one of the finest younger English-language poets in the international literary scene” (BBC Radio). He is “fascinated not just by language but the possibilities of language” (Scotland on Sunday). At the 2004 Struga Poetry Festival (Macedonia), he received the ‘Pleiades’ honour for having made “a significant contribution to contemporary world poetry”. His prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Distracted Geographies, Rain, Aria (A K Ramanujan Translation Award), Fractals: New & Selected Poems|Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions), EroText (Vintage: Penguin Random House), and Kaifi Azmi: Poems | Nazms (Bloomsbury). He has edited important anthologies: The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry, World English Poetry, and Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahitya Akademi). Blue Nude (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize) and The Whispering Anklets are forthcoming. Sen’s works have been translated into over 25 languages. His words have appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, Newsweek, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times, Herald, Literary Review, Harvard Review, Hindu, Hindustan Times, Outlook, India Today, and broadcast on bbc, pbs, cnn ibn, ndtv, air & Doordarshan. Sen’s newer work appears in New Writing 15 (Granta), Language for a New Century (Norton), Love Poems (Knopf/Everyman), Out of Bounds (Bloodaxe), Initiate: Oxford New Writing (Blackwell), and Name me a Word (Yale). He is the editorial director of aark arts and the editor of Atlas. Sen is the first Asian honoured to read his poetry and deliver the Derek Walcott Lecture at the Nobel Laureate Festival. The Government of India’s Ministry of Culture has awarded him the senior fellowship for “outstanding persons in the field of culture/literature”.
Kiran Budkuley
Kiran Budkuley is a critic, poet and translator who works from/into English, Hindi, Konkani, and Marathi. The areas of her research are Culture and Gender Studies, Konkani Literature, Folklore, and Translation Studies. Her articles have appeared in reputed journals, and her poems and general articles are published in well-circulated magazines. Some of her well-known books are: Sahitya Niyaal: Antarang ani Kayarupaam (1998); Samikshekaden Ishtagat (1998) Akshar-Sarita (2009); Mapping the Mosaic of Culture (2009); and Musings in the Meadows (2012). She has several edited volumes and translations to her credit as well. Budkuley retired from Goa University as Professor of English and Head of the Department and Dean, Faculty of Languages and Literature. She is a public speaker and conducts regular workshops on translation, and creative and critical writing. She is Visiting Research Professor, Kavivarya Bakibab Borkar Chair for Comparative Literature at Goa University.
P. Sivakami
P. Sivakami is a prolific writer and a social activist. She has to her credit six acclaimed novels, more than hundred short stories, two poetry collections and several essays and articles.. Born in Tamil Nadu, India, she obtained a master’s degree in history. She served the Government of India and the State Government of Tamil Nadu for 28 years as a member of the Indian Administrative Service. She took voluntary retirement in 2008 to serve the poor and the disadvantaged. She is the founder of Dalit Land Right Movement, The Women’s Front, South India Dalit Writers and Artists Forum, Forum for Indian Women intellect and Founder President of Samuga Samatuva Padai ( Party for Social Equality ), a political party. She served the Sahitya Akademi ( Academy of Letters ) Government of India as its advisory member. She was awarded Fulbright fellowship to undertake research on the effective participation of women in the political process and governance in the USA between 2017 - 18.
Rochelle Potkar
Rochelle Potkar is an alumna of Iowa’s International Writing Program (2015) and a Charles Wallace Writer’s fellow, University of Stirling (2017). Her individual poems To Daraza won the 2018 Norton Girault Literary Prize UK, and The girl from Lal Bazaar was shortlisted at the Gregory O' Donoghue International Poetry Prize, 2018. She is the author of The Arithmetic of breasts and other stories, Four Degrees of Separation, and Paper Asylum.
As critic, her reviews have appeared in Wasafiri, Indian Literature, Asian Cha, and Chandrabhaga. Her upcoming book The Inglorious Coins of the Counting House was longlisted at the Eyewear Publishing, Beverly Prize 2019, UK and shortlisted at the 2nd Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize 2019, NY. Her poetry film Skirt was showcased on Shonda Rhimes' Shondaland.
She has read her poetry in India, Bali, Iowa, Stirling, Glasgow, Hongkong, Ukraine, Hungary, Bangladesh, and the Gold Coast. She conducts poetry & haibun workshops across India.
https://rochellepotkar.com.
Mridula Garg
Equally proficient in Hindi and English, Mridula Garg has written in almost every genre in Hindi; 8 novels, 4 plays, 4 collections of essays, 1 memoir of fellow writers, 1 travel account and 90 short stories. Her latest work is a novel in English called The Last Email published in December 2017.
Her work displays both a wry sense of humor and self reflection. She does not adhere to traditions, Marxist, feminist or region specific. The familiar turns unpredictable as she discards stereotypes to uses irony to elucidate the axiom, I am my choices. If a book makes people angry yet does not allow them to put it down and ultimately forces them to rethink, it is most probably written by Mridula Garg.
Among other awards, her novel, Kathgulab was awarded the Vyas Samman in 2004 and Miljul Mann, the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013. She received the Hellman-Hammet Grant from The Human Rights Watch, New York in 2001. She also received the Ram Manohar Lohia Samman from U.P Hindi Sansthan in 2014.
