Arunava Sinha translates classic, modern and contemporary Bengali fiction and nonfiction into English. Forty-eight of his translations have been published so far. Twice winner of the Crossword translation award — for Sankar’s Chowringhee (2007) and Anita Agnihotri’s Seventeen (2011), respectively — and the winner of the Muse India translation award (2013) for Buddhadeva Bose’s When The Time Is Right, he has also been shortlisted for The Independent Foreign Fiction prize (2009) for his translation of Chowringhee and longlisted for the Best Translated Book award in the US for his translation of Bhaskar Chakrabarti's poetry. Besides India, his translations have been published in the UK and the US in English, and in several European and Asian countries through further translation. He is the Books Editor of Scroll.in, edits the Library of Bangladesh series, and teaches at Ashoka University. He was born and grew up in Kolkata and lives and writes in New Delhi.
Audrey Truschke is Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey. She received her PhD in 2012 from Columbia University and held positions at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge and at Stanford University before joining the History Department at Rutgers-Newark in 2015. Her research focuses on the cultural, imperial, and intellectual history of medieval and early modern India. Her first book, Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (2016), investigates the literary, social, and political roles of Sanskrit as it thrived in the Persian-speaking, Islamic Mughal courts from 1560 to 1650. Her second book, Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth (2017), is a historical reassessment of one of the most hated kings in South Asian history (published in North America as Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India's Most Controversial King). More broadly she publishes on cross-cultural exchanges, historical memory, and imperial power.
Baradwaj Rangan is a film critic and Editor, Film Companion (South). He won the National Award (Swarna Kamal) for Best Film Critic in 2005. His writings have been published in various newspapers and magazines like The Hindu, The New Indian Express, The Caravan, Arts Illustrated, Open, Tehelka, Biblio, Outlook and The Cricket Monthly. His long-form story on Vikram was featured in The Caravan Book of Profiles, as one of their “twelve definitive profiles.” He writes a column on world cinema at Firstpost. He has served as a member of the jury at the National Film Awards, and as a member of the selection committee for international films at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. He teaches a course on cinema at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. His first book, Conversations with Mani Ratnam, was published in 2012. His second book, Dispatches From the Wall Corner, was published in 2014.
Bharati Chaturvedi, writer and environmentalist, is the founder of Chintan, an India-based non-profit that advocates for consumption that does not take a toll on the environment or the poor. Its focus is on enabling the informal recycling sector — wastepickers, kabaris and recyclers — to proactively participate in solving India's mounting trash problem. In September 2014, Bharati was recognised by ASSOCHAM and Rai University for her work and received the Women Grassroots Entrepreneur of the Decade. Most recently, Chintan was awarded the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award for its work. Chintan has also been awarded the US Secretary of State’s Award for Innovation for the Empowerment of Women and Girls in 2012; the third place at the UN-BMW Inter-Cultural Innovation Award in 2013, was awarded by Google in 2013 and has received a special mention by the President of the Republic of France for its work on defending human rights in 2014. Bharati is on various government committees for policy making. Her column GreenPiece, on environmental issues, appears in the Hindustan Times. She has a Master’s degree in History from Delhi University and a Master’s in International Public Policy from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. She is the editor of Finding Delhi: Loss and Renewal in the Megacity, (October 2010). She is the recipient of the prestigious 2009 Johns Hopkins Alumni “Knowledge for the World Award”. She has previously received the LEAD fellowship and is a fellow at the Synergos Institute, New York.
BlaaZe, born Lakshmi Narasimha Vijaya Rajagopala Sheshadri Sharma Rajesh Raman, started entertainment with breakdance at the age of eight in Africa. Having studied in Africa, in England and attended college in the US, his global perspective of storytelling and music came into the limelight when double Oscar and Grammy winner AR Rahman took him under his wings in 2002. Ever since then, BlaaZé has written, sung and rapped in over 100 songs. He wrote Pray For Me, Brother, the official UN Anthem for Poverty by AR Rahman, and has won the prestigious MTV Youth Icon Award 2009 for his independent songs on issues and causes and founded the first Sanskrit hip hop band Rap Bhakthi Mala, along with music director Paul Jacob and Veena maestro Rajhesh Vaidhya. Currently he is on a mission to spread the knowledge of creating something from nothing. The art of creative writing and rap!
C Mahendran began his journey in Communist Party of India at the age of 19. He started his political career from the All India Student Federation (AISF) and All India Student Federation Youth (AISFY). He acted as the Communist Party State Assistant Secretary for a long time. He is now the National Executive Member of CPI. He has been the editor of Thamarai, a literary magazine founded by Jeevanantham, for the past 20 years. Mahendran also has a literary side, as evinced by his popular books like Theekul Viralai Vaithaen, Oru Vannnathu Poochiyin Marana Sasanam, amd Veelvaen Endru Ninaithayo. He has written more than 500 articles in prominent magazines and journals. The highlight of his political career was when he contested against the former chief minister J Jayalalitha in the RK Nagar by-elections in 2015.
Chandan Gowda is faculty at Azim Premji University, Bangalore. He compiled and edited The Way I See It: A Gauri Lankesh Reader, which has since been translated into Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. He has translated UR Ananthamurthy’s novella, Bara, and edited Theatres of Democracy: Selected Essays of Shiv Visvanathan. A Life in the World, a book of autobiographical interviews he did with UR Ananthamurthy will be published soon. He also writes a weekly column on culture and politics in Bangalore Mirror. He is presently completing a book on the history and cultural politics of development in old Mysore.
Chef Alfred Prasad was born in Wardha (central India) and lived all over the sub-continent, which expanded his mind to the immense possibilities of eclectic Indian cuisines. Alfred worked with leading hotels and restaurants in India before moving to the UK in 1999. He joined Tamarind of Mayfair (London) in 2001 as Sous Chef and progressed to Executive Chef within a year. In 2002, Alfred earned the honour of being the youngest Indian chef to receive a Michelin star at 29 years. He has held the Michelin star for thirteen years along with several other accolades. His culinary philosophy is all about Heritage, Health and Happiness. He is highly lauded for his original take on traditional Indian cuisine. Alfred provides consultancy services to establishments in the UK like Gleaneagles (Scotland), MCC Lord’s (London) Cobra Molson Coors (UK), Ennismore- Tandoor Chop House (London), Suvlaki (Soho, Shoreditch, London). In January 2018, he launched OMYA at The Oberoi New Delhi, which is Inspired by India's culinary history. In November 2018, he collaborated with Sumeru, to create and launch a gourmet range of frozen-fresh products in India. Alfred actively supports organisations like Action against hunger, Akshaya Patra, Fairtrade Foundation, Food Cycle and Slow Food UK.
Bhakti Mathur took to writing in 2010 when she created the popular ‘Amma Tell Me’ Series of picture books about Indian festivals and mythology. After a long stint as a banker, she now juggles her time between writing, her passion for yoga and long-distance running, and her family. She lives in Hong Kong with her husband, their two children and two dogs. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the University of Hong Kong and freelances as a journalist. Her articles have been published in the South China Morning Post. When not writing or running after her young boys, Bhakti is happiest curled up with a book in one hand and a hot cup of chai in the other.
Chef Vikramjit Roy is now Corporate Chef for White Hat Hospitality, which has restaurants like Whisky Samba & The Wine Company in NCR, The Wine Rack in Mumbai and Antares in Goa. He has been rated ‘Chef of the Year’ in 2014 and 2017. Chef Vikramjit Roy was responsible for the opening of restaurants like Pan Asian at the ITC Grand Chola Hotel, Chennai; Tian: Asian Cuisine Studio at ITC Maurya Hotel, New Delhi; Wasabi by Morimoto at the Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi, which was listed as the 54th best restaurant in the world by San Pellegrino. With a degree in Hotel Management and Catering Technology from IIHM, Calcutta and in International Hospitality and Tourism from Queen Margaret University College, UK, he started his career with the Oberoi Hotels, New Delhi, where he worked in the trend-setting 360°, Travertino and Taipan, and also at Hyatt, Intercontinental, Okura in Tokyo. His awards include four consecutive Times Food Awards for best Japanese restaurant, three consecutive HT City crystals awards, Vir Sanghvi Awards, and Mail Today’s 101 best restaurants awards. He was the co-founder and Head Chef of Progressive Oriental House, in Mumbai.
Chiké Frankie Edozien grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and learned to read from the newspapers his father brought home. He grew up to become an ink-stain scribbler telling stories of lives in the big city that were often unnoticed. Edozien now teaches journalism at New York University. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Quartz, Time Magazine, The Times (UK) GlobalPost, Out Traveler, and more. Edozien is the author of the groundbreaking memoir, Lives of Great Men: Living & Loving as an African Gay Man, a 2018 Lambda Literary Award winner. He is a contributor to the 2016 Commonwealth Writers anthology, Safe House: Explorations in Creative Nonfiction.
Chinmayi Sripada is an award-winning playback singer, trained primarily in Indian classical music. She won the prestigious CCRT scholarship for young talent when she was eight and the AIR gold and silver medals for Ghazal and Hindustani Classical music respectively in 2000 and 2002. She won the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Kannathil Muthamittaal and the Nandi award for best dubbing artist for Ye Maaya Chesave (Telugu). She is an accomplished dubbing artiste and has served as an RJ and a VJ. Chinmayi founded and runs Blue Elephant, a language services company. In 2011 she was selected for the US State Department Global Women's Mentoring Partnership and was later invited to attend the Fortune Most Powerful Women's summit as a mentee of the programme in October 2011. In 2018, Chinmayi was at the forefront of highlighting claims of sexual harassment in the Indian entertainment industry, in India's MeToo movement.
Chithra Madhavan has an MA and MPhil from the Department of Indian History, University of Madras and a PhD from the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology, University of Mysore. She is the recipient of two post-doctoral fellowships from the Department of Culture, Government of India and from the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi. She is the author of seven books - History and Culture of Tamil Nadu (two volumes), Vishnu Temples of South India (four volumes) and Sanskrit Education and Literature in Ancient and Medieval Tamil Nadu. She has written the text for a coffee-table book - Snapshots Of A Bygone Era: A Century of Images. Chithra has co-edited a book South India Heritage: An Introduction containing 500 articles on the heritage and culture of South India. She has compiled two books Kalakshetra Reflections and Sculpture and Srirangam: Heaven on Earth and has contributed more than a hundred articles to the multi-volume Encyclopedia of Hinduism.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an award-winning and bestselling novelist, poet, activist and teacher of creative writing. She has won many awards, including the American Book Award and the Premio Scanno (Italy). Her work has been published in over 100 magazines and anthologies. Her books have been translated into twenty-nine languages, including Dutch, Hebrew, Bengali, Russian and Japanese. Several of her works have been made into films and plays. In 2015, she was one of the Economic Times’s Twenty Most Influential Global Indian Women. She loves to connect with readers on social media.
Chitra Mahesh is a journalist who has been writing on the arts for over 25 years. She worked in The Hindu for 15 years and has subsequently been a media and PR consultant for ITC Grand Chola, and the NGO Reach. She is also a trustee on the board of two NGO’S working in the areas of Paediatric Cancers and Palliative Care. She has now taken to healing through Tarot, the Moksha Patta (methods of Divination), Bach Flower Remedies, Chakra Healing, Past Life Regression and Meditation to help people realise their true potential.
Daniel Handler is the author of six novels, including Why We Broke Up, We Are Pirates and, most recently, All The Dirty Parts. As Lemony Snicket, he is responsible for numerous books for children, including the thirteen-volume A Series Of Unfortunate Events, the four-volume All The Wrong Questions, and The Dark, which won the Charlotte Zolotow Award. He has received commissions from the San Francisco Symphony and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has collaborated with artist Maira Kalman on a series of books for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, including Girls Standing on Lawns, Hurry Up and Wait and Weather, Weather. His books have sold more than 70 million copies and have been translated into 40 languages, and have been adapted for film, stage and television. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the illustrator Lisa Brown, with whom he has collaborated on several books and one son.
