Neel Mukherjee was born in Calcutta, India, in 1970. He studied English Literature at Oxford and Cambridge. Mukherjee’s first novel, »Past Continuous«, was published in India in 2008. The novel’s protagonist is a young man from Calcutta who travels to England to pursue his studies but leaves Oxford soon thereafter
Naveen Kishore born in 1953, is the publisher at Seagull Books, a publishing house that specializes in English translations of authors such as Ingeborg Bachmann, Jean-Paul Sartre, Thomas Bernhard, Imre Kertész, Yves Bonnefoy, Mo Yan, Mahasweta Devi, Peter Handke and Hans Magnus Enzensberger, among many others. Kishore was awarded the
Nayantara Sahgal was born in 1927 in Allahabad in northeast India. As the niece of Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, she grew up in the very centre of the struggle for independence. In 1944 her father, Ranjit Sitaram Pandit, died of his last imprisonment under British rule.
Namdeo Dhasal was born in a village near Poona, India, in 1947. As a member of the Dalits, the casteless (or ›untouchables‹) he grew up in direst poverty. Dhasal spent his childhood in Golpitha, a red-light district in Mumbai/Bombay, where his father worked for a butcher. Following the example of
Namita Gokhale (née Pant) was born in Lucknow, India in 1956 and grew up between New Delhi and Nainital, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Together with her husband Rajiv Gokhale she published the Mumbai-based film magazine »Super« in the late seventies. Gokhale’s debut novel, »Paro: Dreams of Passion« (1984)
The Indian writer Meena Kandasamy was born in Tamil Nadu in 1984. She received her doctorate in sociolinguistics from Anna University, Chennai.She wrote her first poems at the age of 17 and published her first volume of poetry in 2006 under the title »Touch«. Even here, she tackled the themes
Manil Suri was born in Bombay in 1959. His father worked as assistant music director and his mother was Indira Gandhi’s personal assistant for a year before the latter became Prime Minister. Suri began studying Mathematics at the University of Bombay and in 1983 completed a PhD at the Carnegie
M. T. Vasudevan Nair was born in Kudallur, a village in the southern Indian state of Kerala, in 1933. His first short stories, written in his native language, Malayalam, were published in several magazines while he was a youth. The young author’s first volume of narratives came out in 1952.
Kiran Desai is the daughter of author Anita Desai and was born in Chandigarh in 1971. She grew up in India and was educated in Britain and the USA. Her first novel was praised by leading writers and received the Betty Trask Award. For her second novel, »The Inheritance of
Kiran Nagarkar was born in Mumbai in 1942. In addition to plays and screenplays, he has written four novels, establishing his reputation as an outstanding representative of contemporary Indian literature. His books are a target of ideological critique due to the hybrid nature of his version of postcolonialism, involving irreverence
K. Satchidanandan was born in 1946 in Pulloot, a village in Kerala, a state in Southern India. He began writing poetry at the age of eleven. He graduated in Zoology and then took up English Studies at the Maharaja’s College under the University of Kerala. He took his doctorate in
Curator in Residence 2026 Jeet Thayil, born near the Muvatuppuzha River in Kerala, India, in 1959, is an award-winning poet, novelist, and librettist, as well as a musician and literary editor. He has been named Curator in Residence of the 26th International Literature Festival Berlin by an internationally staffed selection
