The Best Asian Short Stories
Shashi Deshpande, Usha KR, Poile Sengupta and Jyothi Vinod with Monideepa Sahu
Shashi Deshpande
Bio
Novelist and short story writer, Shashi Deshpande has eleven novels, two crime novellas, a number of short story collections, a book of essays, her memoirs and four children’s books to her credit. Three of her novels have received awards, including the Sahitya Akademi award for That Long Silence. She has done translations from Kannada and Marathi into English and her own work has been translated into various Indian and European languages. Her latest work is a a collection of essays: Subversions.
Shashi Deshpande has been invited to participate in various literary conferences and festivals, as well as to lecture in Universities, both in India and abroad. She was awarded the Padma Shri in 2008.
Usha KR
Bio
Usha KR is the author of the novels Boys from Good Families (2019), Monkey-man (2010), A Girl and a River (2007), The Chosen (2003), and Sojourn (1998). Her novels have been listed for several awards including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Man Asia, and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. A Girl and a River won the Vodafone Crossword Award, 2007. Monkey-man was shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, 2012. Her short story Sepia Tones won the Katha Award for Creative Writing back in 1995.
Usha KR was a Writer in Residence at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa during the fall of 2011. She lives in Bangalore.
http://ushakr.wordpress.com
Poile Sengupta
Bio
Poile Sengupta is a well-known writer for children. Her recent work includes Vikram and Vetal, 2005, Good Heavens!, One Act Plays for Children, 2006 and Vikramaditya’s Throne, 2007, from Puffin. Her stories have been included in important anthologies like The Puffin Treasury of Modern Indian Stories, The Puffin Book of Funny Stories, Favourite Stories for Boys and Favourite Stories for Girls, A Clear Blue Sky and Bad Moon Rising, all from Puffin, Sorry, Best Friend and One World, both from Tulika, and The Best of Target.
She has also written a full length musical for children, Yavamajakka! She is an award winning playwright in English for adults. Six of her plays have been published by Routledge – Women Centre Stage, 2010. Her critically acclaimed novel, Inga, was published by Westland in October 2014; one critic called it Booker-worthy.
Her latest picture book Four is being launched at the BLF 2018.
Monideepa Sahu
Bio
Monideepa Sahu worked as a bank manager before veering off into writing. Her books include The Best Asian Short Stories 2017 (Kitaab, Singapore) Going Home in the Rain, and Other Stories_(Kitaab, Singapore) and Rabindranath Tagore: The Renaissance Man (Penguin/Puffin). Her short fiction appears in collections from Central Michigan University, Northeastern Illinois University, Marshall Cavendish (Singapore), Puffin, Scholastic India, and elsewhere. She writes newspaper columns on cabbages and kings, and peacefully accepts the tiny creatures which live in dark and dusty corners of her home. She lives a nomadic life, resurfacing in unlikely Indian cities, and sporadically on Facebook and Instagram.