Kitaab Authors

 

Anees Ayesha

Author of Urdu Poetry: An Introduction

Anees Ayesha, 75, has taught Urdu language and literature in Hyderabad for over 50 years and is an avid promoter of the learning of Urdu among the new generations. She works closely with the Mehfil-i-Khawateen (A women writer’s collective) and Dabistan-i-Jaleeli (Set up to celebrate the works of Ali Ahmed Jaleeli), two organisations that are deeply involved in promoting the Urdu language and appreciation of its contribution to literature and culture in the sub continent.

Anu Kumar

Author of The Girl Who Ran Away in a Washing Machine and Other Stories

Anu Kumar is a novelist and writer who lives in Maryland, US. She is presently studying creative writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She also has post-graduate degrees in management (human resources, XLRI) and history (Delhi University).  She has lived in various cities in India and also in Singapore and has written several books for younger as well as older readers published by Penguin and Hachette.  She has worked previously as a management consultant and also for the Economic and Political Weekly as its assistant editor.  Anu Kumar’s stories have been twice short-listed by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association and also by The Little Magazine (TLM). Her stories have appeared in anthologies published by OUP, London and Brass Monkey Books, Australia. They have also appeared in magazines such as The Little Magazine, Reading Hour, Platform and others.  Her first collection of short stories was titled, In Search of a Raja and other Stories ( Writers’ Workshop, 2002).

Abha Iyengar

Author of The Gourdseller and Other Stories

Abha Iyengar is an award-winning, internationally published poet, author, essayist and a British Council certified creative writing mentor. Her work has appeared in Muse India, The Four Quarters Magazine, Kritya, Reading Hour, Bewildering Stories, Arabesques Review and others. She is a Kota Press Poetry Anthology Contest winner. Her haiku won her the second Prize in Life Positive. Her story, The High Stool, was nominated for the Story South Million Writers Award. Her poem-film, Parwaaz, has won a Special Jury prize in Patras, Greece. Her stories have been selected for A Rainbow Feast: New Asian Short Stories, The Asian Writer, Crime Scene Asia Vol.1 and The Unisun-Reliance Time Outanthologies. She has received the Lavanya Sankaran Writing Fellowship for 2009-2010. She also received the Mariner Award 2010. She was Featured Poet at Poetry with Prakriti, 2010. She has been honoured with the BTB Literary Award 2012 for Best Fiction in a New Genre. Her poems have recently appeared in The Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry. Her poem was long-listed in the RaedLeaf Poetry Contest 2013. Her micro-fiction has won several contests. She was among the top 15 finalists at Flash Mob 2013, an international flash fiction event. Her published works include Yearnings (poetry collection), Flash Bites (flash fiction), and Shrayan (fantasy novel). She dabbles in street photography, digital art and writes poems in Hindustani as well. Her website: www.abhaiyengar.com She blogs at www.abhaencounter.blogspot.in and ankahi-abha.blogspot.in.

Isa Kamari

Author of Duka Tuan Bertakhta, Tweet

Isa has written nine novels in Malay: Satu Bumi, Kiswah, Tawassul, Menara, Atas Nama Cinta, Memeluk Gerhana, Rawa, Duka Tuan Bertakhta and Selendang Sukma. Seven were translated into English: One Earth (Satu Bumi), Intercession (Tawassul), Nadra (Atas Nama Cinta), Rawa (Rawa), A Song of the Wind (Memeluk Gerhana), 1819 (Duka Tuan Bertakhta) and The Tower (Menara). He has also published two collections of poems, Sumur Usia and Munajat Sukma, a collection of short stories, Sketsa Minda and a collection of theatre scripts, Pintu. Isa was conferred the S.E.A. Write Award (2006), the Cultural Medallion (2007), and the Anugerah Tun Seri Lanang (2009). Kitaab will be publishing three of Isa’s work in 2016.

Jayanthi Sankar

Author of Loss and Laws and Other Tamil Short Stories, Horizon Afar and Other Tamil Short Stories

Born and brought up in India, Jayanthi Sankar has been living in Singapore since 1990. She has been creatively active for the past twenty years in short stories, novels, transcreations and essays. Her short story ‘Read Singapore’ was widely recognized in the literary circles. She is writing more in English in the recent years. Having written primarily in Tamil, her short story collections have been short-listed three times for Singapore Literature Prize.

Monideepa Sahu

Author of Going Home in The Rain and Other Stories

Monideepa Sahuis a former banker, who had a wonderful time writing her fantasy adventure novel for young people, Riddle of the Seventh Stone. She has also authored Rabindranath Tagore: The Renaissance Man. Her short fiction has been widely anthologized in India and abroad. She writes opinion pieces and feature stories on literature, art and culture forDeccan Herald and other reputed publications. She lives in Bangalore, India, with her extended family of people, a vintage PC, and countless arthropods. Connect with her at www.monideepa.blogspot.in.

Rheea Mukherjee

Author of Transit for Beginners

Rheea Mukherjee received her MFA in creative writing from California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Her work has been published in Scroll.in, Southern Humanities Review, Cleaver Magazine, CHA: An Asian Literary Magazine, QLRS, The Bombay Literary  Magazine, A Gathering of Tribes, Everyday Fiction, Bengal Lights, and Out Of Print Magazine. Her collection of short stories, Transit for Beginners is her first book published by Kitaab International . She co-founded Bangalore Writers Workshop in 2012 and presently co-runs Write Leela Write, a Design and Content Laboratory in Bangalore.

Sunita Lad Bhamray

Author of Ganga Jamuna

Sunita Lad Bhamray is an author and educator based in Singapore. After a long rewarding career in teaching, she now enjoys her time devoted to writing. Ganga Jamuna is Sunita’s third book. Her first book, Triumphs on the Turf, was about horse racing in India. It was followed by Grandma Lim’s Persimmons, a storybook for children.

Syed Sarwar Hussain

Author of Nameless Lanes, Dreams in Moonless Nights

Syed Sarwar Hussain teaches English at the College of Languages and Translation, King Saud University in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He has also published four books that include ‘Ideology and the Poetry of Stephen Spender’ (1988), ‘Despairing Voices’ (2011), ‘Ashes in the Fire’ (2012), and ‘The Eastern Brew’ (2013).

T.A. Morton

Author of Halfway Up a Hill

T.A. Morton has worked as journalist and editor for Longman Pearson in Hong Kong. Returning to Europe she now resides in Copenhagen where she works as a freelance editor. She lives with her husband and daughter and is the proud godmother to a commercial ship, Tracey Kosan. Currently she is working towards her masters in Literature, and also on her third novel.

Dr. Usha Bande

Author of Adventure Stories of Great Writers

Dr. Usha Bande retired as Principal of a college and was a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, a premier institute of higher learning. She was also a visiting faculty at Vishwabharati University, Shanti Niketan, West Bengal. Dr. Bande was on the faculty of English and during her Fellowship period she studied the novels of Indian women writers examining the strain of resistance in women’s writing. Her book Writing Resistance: A Comparative Study of Women Novelists has been published by the IIAS.  She is a regular contributor to The Tribune, Alive, Women’s Era, Times of India, Indian Express and many other newspapers and magazines.

 

Usha Nagasamy

English translator of  Loss and Laws and Other Tamil Short Stories

Usha Nagasamy, a Further Education college lecturer, has been doing a lot of interpreting and translating for the local Tamil community over the past decade. In 2009, she began translating the Tamil short stories of her elder sister who is a renowned Tamil writer from Singapore. She lives in Greater London.

Zafar Anjum

Author of Kafka in Ayodhya, The Best Asian Short Stories 2019

Zafar Anjum is a Singapore-based journalist, writer and entrepreneur. He has authored Kafka in Ayodhya and Other Short Stories (Kitaab, 2015), Startup Capitals : Discovering the Global Hotspots of Innovation (Random House India, December 2014),
Iqbal: The Life of a Poet, Philosopher and Politician (Vintage Books/Random House India, 2014), The Resurgence of Satyam (Random House India, 2012), and The Singapore Decalogue: Episodes in the Life of a Foreign Talent (Red Wheelbarrow Books, 2012).

Rishav Gupta

Author of Dreamagination

Rishav is 8 years old and he is in Grade 3. He lives in Singapore.

ABDUR RAHEEM KIDWAI and SHERIN SHERWANI

Author of Literary Selfies: Self-Identity in Indian Muslim English Fiction

Abdur Raheem Kidwai is Professor of English and Director UGC Human Resource Devel- opment Centre at the Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. His areas of special interest
are: Literary Orientalism, Muslim Fiction, Lord Byron and English Translations of the Quran.
Some of his latest publications are Believing and Belonging: Critical Essays on British Muslim
Fiction (2016) and Orientalism in English Literature: Perception of Islam and Muslims (2016).

SHARMASherin Shervani is a freelance ELT Consultant. Working as a content developer and teach- er trainer with Collins; Subject Matter Expert with Merit Track; Teacher Trainer with Eng- lish Access Micro-scholarship Program. Her areas of special interest are: English Language
Teaching, Literary Orientalism and Muslim English Literature. Some of her recently pub- lished papers are: “Rethinking the Socio- Cultural Aspects of Qaisra Sharaz’s Novels” The
Narrative of Diaspora ed. Dr. Rohit Phutela, 2016 and “Analyses of the Problems and Challenges faced by the Native Arabic Speaking, EFL Learners” in The Touchstone, An International Refereed Journal of English Literature and Language, ISSN-2347-8799, Dec. 2015.

Kavitha Rao

Author of The Librarian

Kavitha Rao is a journalist and author based in Bangalore, India. Her first book, “Everything You
Wanted to Know About Freelance Journalism ( but didn’t know whom to ask)” was published
by Westland in 2014. She lives to read and reads to live. Her website is at http://www.kavitharao.net.

Kelley Benjamin Bonimy and Dr. Sheela Warrier

Author of Lockie and Lakshmi

Kelley Benjamin¬ Bonimy teaches at an international school in Singapore. Dr. Sheela Warrier
is a Reseach Associate in Singapore.

Vijay Fafat

Author of The Ninth Pawn of White

Vijay Fafat is a Singapore-based banker.

Siddharth Dasggupta

Author of The Sacred Sorrow of Sparrows

Siddharth Dasgupta is an Indian Poet and Novelist. His Poetry and Fiction have appeared in several literary journals, spread across the world. Two of his literary releases hit the shelves in 2017: the Short-Story Collection The Sacred Sorrow of Sparrows (also available in SE Asia); and a Poetry Collection – The Wanderlust Conspiracy.

Anita Thomas

Author of Senserly Amako

Anita Thomas is a writer & media producer who has worked in India, Indonesia and Singapore. She began her career in advertising before setting up Moving Pictures, a production house. She runs SingaporeforKids, a website for Singapore residents and visitors. Her first book, Senserly, Amako, was launched in Singapore in 2018.

Kim Won-il

Author of The Scorpion

Kim Won-il was born on March 15, 1942, in Gimhae, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea. He first became
known in literary circles in 1966 when ‘Algeria in 1961’ was selected as winner of the Maeil Literary Award
by The Maeil Daily News, and when Festivals of Darkness was awarded second place in the fiction contest
held by Hyundae Munhak the following year. He started to gain public attention and interest with Soul
of Darkness published in 1973. Starting with Evening Glow (1978), through ‘The Unforgettable (1982)’
and The House With a Deep Courtyard (1988), his fiction explores the anguish of ordinary people living
in the shadow of the Korean War and the ongoing division that is its painful legacy. He is recognized as the
pioneer writer of the nation’s “division literature.” The Festival of Fire (1980) and Winter Valley (1987)
are two of the best known of his many works that center on the Korean War and the division of Korea.

Park Wan-Suh

Author of Was that Mountain Really There?

Park Wan-suh (1931-2011) is considered by common consent one of the giants of Korean literature. Having made her debut on the literary scene at the mature age of forty, she led a prolific career penning countless short stories and best-selling novels. She has been awarded several prestigious awards, a few of which include Yi Sang Literary Award, Korean National
Literature Award, and Order of Cultural Merit, which was awarded posthumously by the state
for her contribution to national advancement. Her works have been widely translated in other languages and tout a broad readership, bridging cultural, generational, and social-economic
gaps. English translations include The Naked Tree, My Very Last Possession: And Other Stories,
The Sketch of the Fading Sun, Three Days in That Autumn, and Who Ate Up All the Shinga?

Sazma Samir

Author of The Sixth Stone

Sazma Samir is a Singaporean writer, born to parents of Indian origin in Singapore. She has lived
through a remarkable mix of Indian culture with a modern mindset in today’s young adults. She
started writing ever since she was nine, after finding a profound passion and interest for writing.
Her earlier works had an audience with her family and close ones. This book has been the first of
many works that she started at the age of ten and has been iterated several times in these four years.

Sanaya Sengupta

Author of The Magic Tea Cakes

Sanaya started writing the Magic tea cakes when she was 6 years old , when she found
an unused notepad and a pack of colouring pens. For her, even the most ordinary object or person is filled with magic, which comes to life in her wonderous imagination.
Sanaya is currently 8yrs and lives in Singapore with her parents and 6 year old sister, Diya. When she is not busy with school activities, she is on super secret missions with her kid sister, to save the world from evil wizards or other super villians.
Her big wish is for each child to discover their imagination and publish it in their very own book!

Manik Sharma and Semeen Ali

Editor of A Map Called Home

Manik Sharma was born and raised in the hill town of Shimla. He became an engineer before
relapsing into a writer by choice, a journey rife with misadventures. He writes on Arts and Culture, books and Cinema in Delhi.
Semeen Ali was born in Agra, raised in Alllahabad and grew up in Delhi. She is currently wrapping up her research work.

Bharoti Pande

Author of Bunty the Bus gets a Hip Hip Hooray!

Bharoti Pande taught English in schools and colleges in many parts of the world, and spent the
last decade teaching at Singapore Management University. As a working mother and grandmother who has lived in India, the Middle East and South East Asia, she sees a global need for
children books that focus on values and positive attitudes. Bunty the Bus gets a Hip Hip Hooray
is her first book in this series.

Hisham Bustani

Editor of The Best Asian Short Stories 2019

EDITOR Hisham Bustani is an award-winning Jordanian author of several collections of short fic- tion and poetry. He is acclaimed for his bold style and unique narrative voice, and often experiments
with the boundaries of short fiction and prose poetry. Much of his work revolves around issues re- lated to social and political change, particularly the dystopian experience of post-colonial moderni- ty in the Arab world. Hisham’s fiction and poetry have been translated into many languages, with
English-language translations appearing in prestigious journals across the United States, Unit- ed Kingdom, and Canada, including The Kenyon Review, The Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in
Translation, World Literature Today, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. In 2013, the U.K.-
based cultural webzine The Culture Trip listed him as one of Jordan’s top six contemporary writers.

Rajat Chaudhari

Editor of THE BEST ASIAN SPECULATIV FICTION 2018

Dr. Aruna Shahani

Author of Mid Autumn Musings

Kavita Raha

Author of Smart MICE in the Lion City

Alarcon

Author of Three and A Half Coils

Alarcon (author’s pen name), was born in Singapore. As a child, he was very drawn toward
God and loved solitude. In his teens, he started exploring different religions in both their formalistic and ritualistic aspects without any guidance. Six years later, he dropped everything
and adopted atheism until he was gripped by a grand experience of God at the age of sixteen.
It put him in a state of euphoria that made him oblivious to everything except God which
lasted close to a year after which his search for God-proper got ignited.

Naisha Gautam

Author of Light of the Blood Moon

12 -year-old Naisha Gautam studies in Singapore and is passionate about writing. She
started working on her debut novella, Light of the Blood Moon, when she was 9 years old
and completed it within a year.

Dr. Percy Fernandez

Author of THE BEST ASIAN TRAVEL WRITING 2020

Currently the Professor & Chairperson, School of Media & Communication MAHE, Dubai, Dr. Percy Fernandez has straddled the world of academics, print, TV, online media
and has produced documentaries and TV shows for media organizations like Channel 4, the
BBC, Fox TV. He was the expedition photographer for the 2013 NCC Everest Expedition.

Richard Lord

Editor of THE BEST ASIAN CRIME FICTION 2020

Richard Lord has written or co-written over 20 books. He was the editor of two popular crime fiction anthologies: Crime Scene Singapore and Crime Scene Asia. He wrote the acclaimed novel The Strangler’s
Waltz, and one of his crime short stories was adapted as a TV mini-series by Singapore’s Mediacorp.

Dr. Bishun Kumar and Prof. Vijaya Sethi

Author of SEARCH FOR IDENTITY: Enlightening the Dark Self

Prof. Vijaya Sethi, is Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, SRMU, India, and Dr.
Bishun Kumar is Assistant Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, SRMU, India.

Pallavi Narayan and Iman Fahim Hameed

Author of SINGAPORE AT HOME: LIFE ACROSS LINES

Pallavi Narayan, Ph.D., is both a creative and academic writer, as well as a visual artist (photography and watercolour with pen-and-ink), with publications in anthologies and journals. A
PhD in English, she has worked extensively in trade, academic and art book publishing in Singapore and India. She has spoken at various literary platforms including the Singapore Writers Festival, Singapore Book Publishers Association and National University of Singapore.

Mithran Somasundrum

Author of The Mask Under My Face

Mithran Somasundrum was born in Colombo and grew up in London. He has lived and worked
in Bangkok for almost twenty years. His short fiction has been published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Sun, The Minnesota Review, Natural Bridge, and Best Asian
Short Stories 2017, among others. He has written on Thai politics for The Guardian (UK)

Hussain Ul Haque

Author of Dreams in Moonless Nights

Hussain Ul Haque is a well-known literary figure in the Urdu world. He is the recipient of many honours for his writings. He received the Akhtar Urainvi Award for fiction in 1993, RajBhasha Award for
Fiction and Poetry 1998, and the American Urdu Society Award, Maryland, USA, 2012, among others.

Neil Daswani

Author of Redshift, Seen & Felt, Why Now?

Neil Daswani is a Singaporean author with an international background. He is a banker by
day and a poet by night who now writes poetry prolifically and often in tandem with artists.