Writing and Society Research Centre

ALIF brings together leading Australian, Indian and Indo-Australian writers and publishers.

Information on the Australian participants.

Indian Participants

Mahmood Farooqui is a writer, artist and director. He is the author of Besieged: Voices from Delhi 1857 (2010) and a contemporary story-teller of Tilism-e-Hoshruba. He revived Dastangoi:The Lost Art Form of Urdu Storytelling and performs stories from this medieval corpus with Danish Husain.

Girish Karnad pioneered the exploration of Indian myths, folklore and history on modern Indian stage and reintroduced traditional techniques such as music, dance and mime. He is the winner of the Jnanpith (for Kannada), the highest literary honour in India, and of the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Shri. Read Karnad's message for World Theatre Day (PDF, 58KB)

C S Lakshmi is a Tamil feminist writer and writes under the pseudonym Ambai. She is an independent researcher in women's studies and founded SPARROW: Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women, a non-governmental organization in 1988. Read her article 'Landscapes of the Body'. Read another extract of Lakshmi's writing (PDF, 67KB)

Gogu Shyamala, a Dalit feminist and Telangana activist, writes in Telugu about life in rural Andhra Pradesh. Her recent collection of short stories, Father May Be an Elephant and Mother Only a Small Basket, But… has won praise.

Khynpam Sing Nongkynrih from Meghalaya writes poems and short fiction in Khasi and English. The Great Unconventional Elegiac Tradition raises immediate questions about a tradition of lamentation and its place in the North-East, as also about aesthetics within a nationalist tradition. His work has been published in Wasafiri. Read Nongkynrih's Heart of Horror: The Tragic Life of Ka Likai (PDF, 101KB)

Mamang Dai is a former civil servant and journalist and has written extensively on the culture and history of Arunachal Pradesh. She is a member of the North East Writers' Forum (NEWF), India, and has published several short stories, prose and poems. She received the prestigious Padma Shree, the fourth highest civilian award of India, in 2011. Read an extract from Dai's book The Legends of Pensam (PDF, 130KB)

Mita Kapur is the author of The F-Word. She is the founder-CEO of Siyahi, India's leading literary consultancy and curates Bookaroo and Mountain Echoes Literature Festival in Bhutan annually. She is the one of the founder members the Jaipur Literature Festival.

N S Madhavan is a leading writer of contemporary Malayalam literature. In a long career he has produced numerous short stories, novels,  essays, plays and football columns. His latest novel, Lanthan Batheriyile Luthiniyakal (Litanies of Dutch Battery 2003) was awarded the Hindu Literary Prize in 2011. Read excerpts from Litanies of Dutch Battery (PDF 125 KB)

Prabodh Parikh is a poet, short fiction writer, visual artist, film lover and admirer of beat poetry. His book of poems, Kaunsman, (Between Parentheses/In Brackets) 1993, represents thirty years of work in Gujarati literature. His work has been translated into Bengali, English, Hindi, Marathi and Punjabi. Read a selection of Praikh's work (PDF, 125KB)

R Sivapriya is the Managing Editor, Classics and Translations, with Penguin Books India, the most prominent literary publishing house in the Indian subcontinent.

Uday Prakash is one of contemporary Hindi literature's most original and audacious voices. He is an eminent scholar, poet, essayist, journalist, translator and short story writer. His work has been translated into 10 languages. He is the recipient of the 2010 Sahitya Akademi Award and 2009 SAARC Literary Award. Read an extract from The Girl with the Golden Parasol (PDF, 83KB)

Sharankumar Limbale is a Marathi Dalit activist, writer, editor and critic. His autobiography, Akkarmashi (The Outcaste) describes growing up as an impoverished outcaste in modern India. Towards and Aesthetic of Dalit Literature is his treatise on how dalit literatures should be read. Read an extract from Limbale's Hindu (PDF, 18KB)

Australian Participants

Ivor Indyk is founding editor and publisher of HEAT magazine and the award-winning Giramondo book imprint. A critic, essayist and reviewer, he has written a monograph on David Malouf for Oxford University Press, and essays on many aspects of Australian literature, art, architecture and publishing. Read Indyk's essay 'The Book and Its Time' (PDF, 1.2 MB)

Michelle de Kretser was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Australia with her family when she was 14. She has published three novels; The Rose Grower, The Hamilton Case and The Lost Dog. She has won many prizes including the Encore Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Southeast Asia and Pacific). Read an extract from The Lost Dog (PDF, 2.7 MB)

Alexis Wright is a novelist whose works include the Miles Franklin Prize winning Carpentaria. She is a member of the Waanyi nation of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Her first novel Plains of Promise was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize and published in France as Les Plaines de L'Espoir. Read Wright's essay 'On Writing Carpentaria' (PDF, 98KB)

Peter Minter is a leading Australian poet, editor and scholar. His collections of poetry include Rhythm in a Dorsal Fin, blue grass and Empty Texas which won The Age Poetry Book of the Year. He is the co-editor of the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Aboriginal Literature.

Nicholas Jose has published seven novels, including The Red Thread (2000) and Original Face (2005), two collections of short stories, essays, art writing and a memoir. He is Professor of English and Creative Writing at The University of Adelaide and a member of the Writing and Society Research Centre, University of Western Sydney. Read an extract from The Red Thread (PDF, 2.4MB)

Judith Beveridge is a distinguished Australian poet and editor. Her books include The Domesticity of Giraffes, Accidental Grace and Wolf Notes. She has won many prizes for her poetry including the NSW Premier's Poetry prize, the Judith Wright Calanthe Award for Poetry and the Victorian Premier's Poetry Prize.

Inez Baranay's ten books include Neem Dreams, With The Tiger and sun square moon: writings on yoga and writing which were first published in India. The Edge of Bali was re-published in 2012. Many of her short stories and essays can be read online. She currently lives in Istanbul. Read an extract from Neem Dreams (PDF, 87KB).

Ali Cobby Eckermann's first collection of poetry little bit long time was published in 2009. The poems reflect on her journey to reconnect with her Yankunytjatjara / Kokatha family in the desert regions of central Australia. She has since published two verse novels; His Father's Eyes and Ruby Moonlight. 

Michael Wilding is a writer, editor, publisher and critic. He has written many novels and short story collections. His publication credits include Harpers, The New Yorker and the London Review of Books. His work has been extensively translated and has appeared in both the Bengali and Punjabi languages. Read an interview with Wilding (PDF, 145KB)

Suneeta Peres da Costa is an award-winning Australian writer of Goan heritage. She is author of the bestselling novel Homework (Bloomsbury), productions for ABC Radio, stories, prose poems, plays and essays. She is currently fiction editor at Mascara Literary Review and lives in Sydney. Read Peres da Costa's 'The Changed Woman' (PDF, 42KB) and 'The Mirror Man' (PDF, 42KB).

Michelle Cahill is a Goan-Anglo-Australian poet and text prose writer. She was highly commended in the Blake Poetry Prize, the Wesley Michel Wright Prize and received the Val Vallis Award. Her poems are anthologised in 30 Australian Poets, The Yellow Nib Anthology of Modern English Poetry by Indians.

Roanna Gonsalves is a short-story and documentary play writer and cultural policy commentator. Her work has been published and performed in India and Australia. She and her collaborators won an Australian Writers Guild Award 2011 for Yet to Ascertain the Nature of the Crime, a documentary play about Indian students in Australia. Read an extract from Gonsalves' 'Curry Muncher' (PDF, 79KB)

Subhash Jaireth has published three books of poetry: Yashodhara: Six Seasons without You, Unfinished Poems for Your Violin and Before the Bullet Hit Me (in Hindi). To Silence: Three Autobiographies was published in 2011 and adapted for stage as monologues. After Love is expected in 2012. Read an extract of From Kabir in To Silence: Three Autobiographies (PDF, 23KB)

Christopher Raja is an Alice Springs-based writer. His first full-length play, The First Garden, co written with Natasha Raja and based on the life of Olive Pink, is published by Currency Press. His novel The Burning Elephant is represented by The Colchie Agency and A Wyatt Book, Inc.

Sharon Rundle is a writer, editor and academic. Latest co-edited Indo-Aus books: Alien Shores (2012) and Fear Factor Terror Incognito. Sharon contributed to 'Desert in Bloom: Indian Women's Fiction in English'. Read Rundle's introduction to Fear Factor Terror Incognito (PDF 66KB) 

Manisha Jolie Amin was born in Kenya and came to Australia at the age of five. She received her PhD from UTS in 2011. Dancing to the Flute, her first novel is set in India and based on the raag structure. Read an extract from Dancing to the Flute (PDF, 99KB). Read Amin's essay 'Indias of the mind - Creative writing and oral history' (PDF, 446KB).

Paul Sharrad has research interests in Third-World cum Post-Colonial literatures and cross-cultural ventures in literature. He is also interested in canon formation, literary reflections of the shaping forces of contemporary post-colonial cultural politics and its engagement with new (and old) imperialisms.

Aashish Kaul is presently completing a Doctorate in Arts at the University of Sydney. His fiction and essays have appeared in several publications in the United States and Australia, most recently in The Quarterly Conversation. He is currently writing a novel on chess. Read Kaul's 'The Ascending Light' (PDF, 89KB)

Bem Le Hunte is the author of several short stories and three novels. The Seduction of Silence and There, Where the Pepper Grows have been published internationally to great critical acclaim and Father of all Stories (publication pending) forms part of a recent doctoral submission at the University of Sydney.

Sudesh Mishra, poet, playwright, short fiction writer and academic, was born in 1962 in Suva to an Indo-Fijian family. He is Professor in Literature and Linguistics at the University of the South Pacific. He is the author of four books of poems and is currently at work on his fifth.

Vijay Mishra is author of more than 60 refereed articles and book chapters. He writes on the diasporic imaginary and multicultural theory, Bollywood cinema and Salman Rushdie. He also loves playing the harmonium.

P M Newton spent thirteen years in the NSW Police Force before resigning to live and travel in West Africa and India. Her first book, The Old School was published in 2010 and won the Sisters in Crime Readers Choice Award and was joint winner of the 2011 Asher Award. 

Malcolm Knox is a former literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and has won a Walkley Award for journalism. His fiction includes The Life, Jamaica, A Private Man and Summerland. He is winner of a Ned Kelly Award and the Colin Roderick Award. He has numerous non-fiction works on cricket.

Kabita Dhara is director and publisher at Brass Monkey Books, a Melbourne-based publishing house that specialises in fiction from India and non-fiction that engages with the Australia–India relationship. She has worked as an editor, bookseller and reviewer.  

Kunal Sharma has published short fiction in the journal Southerly as well as Unsweetened 2010. He has won a small number of awards for his creative and critical writing. He is currently studying law, and is a research assistant in the law faculty at UNSW. Read Sharma's House and Happiness (PDF, 132KB)

Christopher Cyrill is a novelist, short story writer, playwright and poet. He began publishing his work at the age of 17 and served for many years as the fiction editor for HEAT magazine and the fiction advisor to Giramondo Publishing. He is author of Hymns for the Drowning and The Ganges and Its Tributaries. Read Cyrill's piece 'Quaternion' (PDF, 66KB)