“I write poetry because I can’t help not writing!” – Barnali Ray Shukla (Indian writer, poet & filmmaker)

Team Kitaab is in conversation with Indian writer, poet, and filmmaker Barnali Ray Shukla as a part of the South Asian Women Writers Feature.

For the whole of March, we will be featuring South Asian Women Writers on Kitaab. You can read the editor’s note to know more about this.

Today we are featuring, Indian writer and poet Barnali Ray Shukla, who is also a filmmaker.  

A detour from academia was waiting to welcome her as she topped the University of Delhi at both graduation and post-graduation, but she made the hard choice, to pursue writing. 

Her writing has been featured in Sunflower Collective, Out of Print, Kitaab.org, OnEating, Madras Courier, Bengaluru Review, Indian Ruminations, Vayavya, The Punch Magazine, The Brown Critique, Kaurab, Usawa Literary Review, Gallerie, Portside Review, Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry II, indianculturalforum.in, Indian Quarterly,  MODERN ENGLISH POETRY BY YOUNGER INDIANS (Sahitya Akademi), THE WORLD THAT BELONGS TO US (HarperCollins India), HAVE A SAFE JOURNEY(Amaryllis), SIDE EFFECTS OF LIVING (Speaking Tiger), HIBISCUS (Hawakal), OPEN YOUR EYES (Hawakal), THE KALI PROJECT (Indie Blu-e Publishing), CONVERSE: CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH POETRY BY INDIANS (PippaRann Books & Media), Borderless (Singapore), Rivers Going Home (Red River & Indian Novels Collective), Amity ( Hawakal), Voice & Verse (Hong Kong), UCityReview (USA), A Portrait in Blues (UK), and Centre for Stories (Australia). Some of her poetry has been translated into Chinese and Japanese.