5 - 7 December 2019 , Thu - Sat.
GALF 2019 : Speakers | Programme | Partners | Performances | Artwork | Videos
Photo Gallery: Inaugural Day | Day 1 | Day 2
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.
Saee Koranne-Khandekar
Saee Koranne-Khandekar is an author and culinary consultant. She researches and writes primarily on food, where her interests include indigenous cuisines, baking, and culinary literature. She is the author of the widely reviewed Crumbs!: Bread Stories and Recipes for the Indian Kitchen and writes extensively on baking and regional cuisines in their historical and socio-cultural contexts, and has been awarded the Food Chroniclers Award, 2019. Her second book, Pangat; A Feast, navigates the many sub-cuisines of Maharashtra and attempts to break the myths that surround the food of the land.
Saee is also an amateur poet. Her work can be read on www.saeekhandekar.com, and in various print and online journals.
Derek Mascarenhas
Derek Mascarenhas is the author of the acclaimed debut linked short story collection, Coconut Dreams (Book*hug, 2019). A graduate of the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies Creative Writing Program, Derek is a finalist and runner up for the Penguin Random House of Canada Student Award for Fiction, and a nominee for the Marina Nemat Award. He has works published in places such as The Dalhousie Review, Switchback, Maple Tree Literary Supplement, Joyland, and The Antigonish Review. Derek is one of four children born to parents who emigrated from Goa, India, and settled in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. A backpacker who has traveled across six continents, Derek currently resides in Toronto.
Vidya Kamat
Vidya Kamat is an artist, research scholar, and academic. Her art practice looks at the mythological narratives and traditional belief systems engage and alter perceptions within contemporary Indian social reality. Kamat's works have been showcased in Dhaka( 2012), Istanbul(2007), Santa Fe( 2008), New Delhi(2010,2011) art fairs . She has also shown her works in curated shows in New York ( 2011), Singapore (2011), Thailand(2009), London( 2009), Paris( 2009) & recently Serendipity Festival Goa (2018). Besides, she has had solo shows in Mumbai and Bengaluru, India. Vidya Kamat is also a founder and curator of Talking Myths Project an online archive of traditional tales; and founder of a non-profit organisation Centre for Study of Mythology and Culture based in Goa India.
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.
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.
Sanjay Dharwadker
Sanjay Dharwadker is a writer of fiction and non-fiction.
Born in Naya Nangal, Punjab and educated at schools in Delhi and Jaipur, he has a master’s degree in pure mathematics from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani Rajasthan. Thereafter his career has spanned three continents and he currently advises the United Nations and national governments on identification policy, privacy, biometrics and related topics. He has lived in Delhi and then Johannesburg and is currently based at Utrecht in the Netherlands.
His first book published in 1998 was titled “Chipping Away the Blues” which contained essays on corporate humour. “Diamond In My Palm” (2019) is his first fictional work and he has already embarked on a second novel titled “Philosopher’s Mistress” which traces René Descartes journey through the Netherlands.
He also writes about other books, travel, histories, as well as identity in the contemporary world, technology and society.
He travels extensively with his partner, Kippy and enjoys a good game of Bridge.
Sunanda Mehta
Sunanda Mehta is a journalist with over twenty-five years of experience. She began her career at Femina and moved on to Magna Publishing, where she became the founder-editor of the Pune city magazine Citadel at the age of twenty-five. After this, she worked for the Indian Express for two decades, breaking many stories throughout her tenure. From 2010 to 2017, she was Resident Editor of the newspaper’s Pune edition, which made her the first woman editor of a national English daily in Pune.
A graduate of Lady Shri Ram College for Women where she studied History, Sunanda also has degrees in Education and Journalism. A former Chevening fellow, she has been a visiting lecturer at the University of Pune. Sunanda divides her time between Mumbai and Pune.
Manohar Shetty
Manohar Shetty has published 'Full Disclosure: New and Collected Poems (1981-2017)'. His new book of poems is 'Borderlines'. His anthology: 'Ferry Crossing: Short Stories from Goa' has gone into several reprints. He has lived in Goa since 1985.
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.
