Sessions
Brave the Elements: Nature as Setting
Allen C Jones, Rahman Abbas, Sumathy aka Thamizhachi Thangapandian with Deepti Navaratna
Rohzin
Rahman Abbas with Milee Ashwarya
Bio
Rahman Abbas is a major contemporary novelist and winner of India’s highest literary award, the Sahitya Akademi award, for the year 2018, for his fourth novel, Rohzin. He has also won two state Sahitya Akademi awards. When his first novel was published, Islamists accused him of spreading obscenity through his work and filed a case against his novel. Rahman fought the case for over ten years and was acquitted in 2016 of obscenity charges.
Rahman is the author of nine books, including five novels. Rohzin, has been translated into German, English, and Hindi. The German translation was discussed in Switzerland as part of ‘The Days of Indian Literature’ in February 2018, and in May-June 2018, Rahman toured various cities in Germany to discuss the novel with readers. The novel has also received the prestigious LitProm Grant managed by the Swiss and German governments. The Penguin India Random House published Rohzin in English in May 2022 and the novel was longlisted for the JCB Prize.