KHOJ celebrated publication of Mahmud Rahman’s first book of short stories, Killing the Water (Penguin India, 2010), with readings from emerging authors from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, most of whom had been published by Westland-Tranquebar.
Mahmud Rahman was born in Dhaka and came of age during the upsurge of the late sixties that led to the creation of Bangladesh. During the ’71 war, he was a refugee in Calcutta. In his adult life, he has lived in cities across the U.S., employed as a factory worker, data entry operator, community organizer, and database techie. He also translates Bangla fiction and is currently working on a novel. Killing the Water includes twelve stories set in Bangladesh, urban American locales, and imagined territories. Each says something revealing and memorable about the effects of war, migration and displacement, as new lives play out against altered worlds ‘back home.’
Mridula Koshy was born and raised in Delhi till she migrated to the US, where she worked as a union and community organiser. Years went by and she returned to the city that makes her think the hardest. She lives in Delhi with her partner and children. Her short stories have been published widely, both in India and abroad. If It Is Sweet (Westland-Tranquebar), her first book has won rave reviews and a very wide readership. Mridula won the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize in 2009.
Sheba Karim is a graduate of the New York University School of Law and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her fiction has appeared in 580 Split, Asia Literary Review, Barn Owl Review, Kartika Review, Shenandoah, the anthologies Electric Feather (Westland-Tranquebar) and Growing Up Girl. Two of her short stories were recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her young adult novel, Skunk Girl, was published in 2009. She was a 2009-2010 Fulbright-Nehru Scholar based in New Delhi, where she worked on a new novel.
Shabnam Nadiya is a writer and translator. Her fiction explores the isolation individuals face because of boundaries of class, gender, race, age and religion. She has been published in local and international magazines and anthologies. Her fiction and poetry was recently published in One World (New Internationalist), A Stranger Among Us (OV Books/University Press of Illinois), Gulf Coast, and Arsenic Lobster.
Parvati Sharma is a writer based in New Delhi. Her stories have appeared in Electric Feather (Westland-Tranquebar) and the Tehelka Fiction Special 2010. Her collection, The Dead Camel and Other Love Stories came out in 2010.
Abeer Hoque is a Nigerian born Bangladeshi American writer and photographer. She has BS and MA degrees from the Wharton School of Business and an MFA in writing from the University of San Francisco. Her first book Olive Witch won the 2005 Tanenbaum Award in creative nonfiction. The Lovers and the Leavers, her second book, is a novel in stories and was funded by a 2007 Fulbright Scholarship in Bangladesh and India. She has held two solo photography exhibitions and was recently published in the erotic anthology, Electric Feather (Westland-Tranquebar). See more at olivewitch.com.
Samit Basu is a 30-year-old Indian writer of novels, short stories, comics and screenplays. He has written several epic/adventure fantasy novels, The Simoqin Prophecies (Penguin India, 2003), Ordbilder (Sweden, 2005), Piper Verlag (Germany, 2006), The Manticore’s Secret (Penguin India, 2005) and The Unwaba Revelations (Penguin India, 2007). All his novels were well received, and were bestsellers in India. Apart from the novels, Basu has written several short stories in anthologies for adults and children, and several comics, including two series, Devi and The Tall Tales of Vishnu Sharma, published worldwide by Virgin Comics and a graphic novel, Untouchable, co-written with Mike Carey (the Felix Castor series, Lucifer, X-Men) awaiting publication from Liquid Comics. Basu was born in Calcutta and educated in Calcutta and London. He lives and works in New Delhi. His novel Turbulence came out in 2010.
