CONTRIBUTORS

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Pushpamala N

Designation or qualification

Pushpamala N

Designation or qualification

Pushpamala N has been called “the most entertaining artist-iconoclast of contemporary Indian art”. In her sharp and witty work as a photo- and video-performance artist, sculptor, writer, curator and provocateur, and in her collaborations with writers, theatre directors and filmmakers, she seeks to subvert the dominant discourse. She is known for her strong feminist work and for her rejection of authenticity and embracing of multiple realities. As one of the pioneers of conceptual art in India and a leading figure in the feminist experiments in subject, material and language, her inventive work has had a deep influence on cultural practice in India. Pushpamala N lives and works as an independent artist in Bangalore. She studied BA and MA in Sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts, MSU, Baroda. She exhibits widely in India and internationally, and speaks often at seminars and conferences. Her writing is published internationally in journals and books. She is the recipient of the National Award 1984, Gold Medal at the VI Triennale India 1986, Karnataka Rajyotsava Award 1986, Karnataka Shilpa Kala Akademi Award 1997,the Karnataka State Jakanachari Award 2015. In 1996, she created a fictitious institute Somberikatte (Idler’s Platform in Kannada) through which she organizes talks and seminars. In 2016, she organized an international seminar on the early modern Karnataka artist K. Venkatappa in Bangalore. She is now co-editing the book with Deeptha Achar to be published by Routledge. She was the curator of the Chennai Photo Biennale 2019, during which she organized an international photography seminar called Light Writing in Chennai, India.

Vighnesh Hampapura

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Vighnesh Hampapura

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ighnesh Hampapura recently graduated from Ashoka University with a degree in literature. He is heading to the University of Oxford for further studies, where he is supported by a Rhodes Scholarship. His English translation of Kannada writer Vasudhendra’s short stories is forthcoming from Penguin Random House.

Vandana Rag

Designation or qualification

Vandana Rag

Designation or qualification

Vandana Rag is a bi-lingual author, translator and literary activist. She has published four books of short stories in Hindi. Her recently published Hindi novel, Bisat par Jugnu – a saga of dreams traversing across India and China is receiving much critical acclaim. She has translated poetry and prose into Hindi and English.

Third Issue

Ashutosh Bhardwaj

Designation or qualification

Ashutosh Bhardwaj

Designation or qualification

A bilingual writer and journalist, Ashutosh Bhardwaj writes in various prose genres ranging from fiction, literary criticism, reportage, investigative journalism, travelogues to memoirs. He has received several awards and fellowships for his journalism and literary writings. He has published three books: Jo Frame Men Na The (a short story collection); Pitra-Vadh (a book of literary criticism that received the Devi Shankar Avasthi Samman); and a book on the Naxal insurgency, The Death Script that was chosen as the Atta Galatta Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2020. He has been a Fellow at Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, and will be a writer-in-residence at Prague-City of Literature in 2022.

Daisy Barman

Designation or qualification

Daisy Barman

Designation or qualification

Daisy Barman is currently a Ph.D. scholar at Gauhati University, Assam where she is working on literary folkloristics in Indian English fiction. Her interest in translation began at a formative age and developed into serious engagement over time. Her translation of an Assamese short story ‘A Political Tale’ has recently been published in an anthology, How to Tell the Story of an Insurgency edited by Aruni Kashyap.

Saronik Bosu

Designation or qualification

Saronik Bosu

Designation or qualification

Saronik Bosu is a doctoral candidate in the Department of English, New York University, writing his dissertation on literature and economic thought in modern India. His other interests include medical and environmental humanities. He has been published in journals such as Interventions and Movable Type, and in volumes such as The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights and Literature. He co-hosts the podcast High Theory, which asks simple questions about difficult ideas from the academy. Recently for mental health purposes, he has resurrected his long-abandoned habit of making art.

Second Issue

Leela Samson

Short Description

Leela Samson

Short Description

Leela Samson is a renowned Bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer, teacher, writer and actor. She received the impulses for her growth as a dancer from Kalakshetra, Chennai. From 1975 to 2005, she taught at the Sriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra and privately in Delhi, and choreographed a body of work called ‘Spanda’ known for its innovations in Bharatanatyam. Leela has travelled extensively and performed at leading festivals of dance in India and abroad. She was the Director, Kalakshetra from 2005 to 2012. Leela has written a few books – ‘Rhythm in Joy’ for Lustre Press in 1987, on the classical dance forms of India, ‘Rukmini Devi – A Life’ published by Penguin Viking in 2010, on the life of the legendary founder of Kalakshetra. Leela is the recipient of the Sanskriti Award in 1982, the Padmashri Award in 1990, the Nritya Choodamani Award in 1997, the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 2000 and the Natya Kala Acharya Award from the Music Academy, Chennai in 2015. From August 2010 to September 2014, she served as Chairperson, Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi. From mid-2011 to early 2015, Leela served as Chairperson, Central Board of Film Certification. Leela performs solo and also travels with the Spanda Dance Company for shows in India and abroad. It is what she loves best – to dance, to teach, to understand better the relationship between the lyrics, music and expression of the individual dancer and the socio-political forces amidst which an artiste practices her art.

Kalyani Jha

Short Description

Kalyani Jha

Short Description

Kalyani Jha is a Marathi lecturer at the undergraduate level. She also teaches Marathi to non-Marathi speakers. She has a Doctorate in Marathi Literature. Research, translation, culture, gender, child education and music are her areas of interest. She lives in Pune.

Vandana Rag

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Vandana Rag

Short Description

Inaugral Issue

Manoranjan Byapari

Short Description

Manoranjan Byapari

Short Description

Manoranjan Byapari was born in the mid-fifties in Barishal. After he migrated to West Bengal at the age of three, he lived in two refugee camps before he moved away at the age of fourteen to work. At twenty-four, he became politically active with the Naxals after meeting famous labour activist Shankar Guha Niyogi. It was in prison that Byapari taught himself to read and write. Later, when he was working as a rickshaw puller, he had a chance encounter with Mahasweta Devi who asked him to contribute to her journal, Bartika. He has since then published several novels, four volumes of memoirs, over fifty short stories, essays and poems. He worked until recently as a cook with the Helen Keller Institute for the Deaf and Blind in West Bengal. He won the 2019 Hindu Prize For Non-Fiction for his biography, Itibritte Chandal Jiban translated into English as Interrogating My Chandal Life: An Autobiography of a Dalit.

Vandana Rag

Short Description

Vandana Rag

Short Description

Amritah Sen

Short Description

Amritah Sen

Short Description

Amritah Sen is a visual artist based in Kolkata and studied art at Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan with painting as her specialization. Through her works, Amritah tells stories of different kinds and in different formats and currently takes a lot of interest in making Book Art. She has shown her works frequently in group shows across India, Europe and USA. Amritah has also done nine solo shows till date in Kolkata, New Delhi and Mumbai and has participated in different art fairs including Dhaka Art Summit, India Art Fair and United Art Fair. She has been a part of various research residencies in India and other South Asian countries.

Utsa Bose

Short Description

Utsa Bose

Short Description

Utsa Bose is a final year undergraduate student in the Department of English at St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi. He divides his time between translations, writing, and undergraduate academic work. His publications include the translated short fictions of Bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay, Rajshekhar Basu and Rabindranath Tagore