Tiffany Atkinson is a poet and literary critic. Her poems are published widely in journals and anthologies, and her first collection, Kink and Particle (Seren, 2006) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and winner of the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. Her second, Catulla et al (Bloodaxe, 2011) was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year, and her third collection, So Many Moving Parts, (Bloodaxe 2014) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and winner of the Roland Mathias Poetry Prize. Her forthcoming collection, which explores medicine and experiences of healthcare, will be published in 2017, and was winner of the 2014 Medicine Unboxed Creative Prize. Tiffany gives regular readings and workshops across the UK and internationally, and is a Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of East Anglia.
Sirsho Bandopadhyay is a Kolkata-based writer-journalist. He is a Senior Assistant Editor in a Bengali news daily and Principal Correspondent for the German radio station Deutsche Welle. Sirsho writes short stories and novels and also contributes features and essays for major Bengali publications. Published Work: Sandhyaraater Shefali (2014), an autobiography of the first Bengali cabaret dancer Miss Shefali. Published by the leading press Ananda Publishers, the book has won critical acclaim. First novel Shardul Sundari (2015) (The Tiger Queen). Based on the life of the first Bengali woman to perform with tigers in India’s first national circus. Published in Desh, the premier Bengali literary magazine and later as a book by Ananda Publishers. Second novel Ramaniratan (2016) (Gem of a Woman) on the male actors performing female roles in Bengali theatre. Third novel, Phaand (2017) (The Trap) a thriller, is soon to be published as a book. A collection of his features/articles is under publication.
Patrick Barkham is a Natural History Writer for the Guardian. His first book, The Butterfly Isles, was shortlisted for the 2011 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje prize. His second, Badgerlands, won the best general non-fiction prize at the East Anglian Book Awards 2014. His book, Coastlines, was published by Granta Books in 2015, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the National Trust’s campaign to save the British coast.
Samit Basu is the author of several novels, including the UK/US-acclaimed Turbulence and Resistance (Titan Books) and the Gameworld trilogy of novels (Penguin India) that initiated Indian fantasy in English in 2003. He also writes for children. Samit is also extensively published in international short story anthologies across several genres and writes in a variety of media.
Sarah Bower is the author of three novels and many short stories, and her work has been translated into ten languages. Her first novel, The Needle in the Blood, won the Susan Hill Award 2007 and her second, The Book of Love, was a Toronto Globe and Mail bestseller.
Vesna Goldsworthy was born in Belgrade in 1961 and has lived in London since 1986. She writes in English, her third language. She has authored four widely translated books, including two international bestsellers, both of which were serialised by the BBC: Chernobyl Strawberries, a memoir, and Gorsky, a novel.
Sarah Hickson is a London-based arts and documentary photographer. Her practice is mostly concerned with artists and performance, and the role of the arts in a wider social or humanitarian context. Much of her recent work explores themes of migration, displacement and transition. She has worked on photographic commissions, residencies and personal projects in West and North Africa, India, Europe and around the UK, in collaboration with theatre companies, choreographers, musicians, festivals and NGOs.
Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s biography of the poet Gabriele d’Annunzio The Pike (2013) won all three of the UK’s most prestigious prizes for non-fiction – the Samuel Johnson Award, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Costa Biography Award. Her previous books are Cleopatra – Histories, Dreams and Distortions and Heroes. Her first novel Peculiar Ground is published in May 2017.
Anjali Joseph’s first novel, Saraswati Park, published by 4th Estate in 2010, won the Betty Trask Prize, Desmond Elliott Prize, and Vodafone Crossword Book Award for Fiction in India. Another Country, her second novel, was published in June 2012 and was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Her third novel, The Living, was published in the UK and India in 2016.
Sreedevi Nair is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of English at NSS College for Women, Neeramankara, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. During her time at the British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT), she is undertaking independent research entitled ‘Sita’s Sorrow: When Malayali Women Retell The Ramayana.’
Sarah Perry grew up in a deeply religious home. Kept apart from contemporary culture, she spent her childhood immersed in classic literature, Victorian hymns and the King James Bible. She has had two novels published, both by Serpent’s Tail: After Me Comes The Flood and The Essex Serpent.
Parni Ray is a writer curator from Kolkata. She is an alumnus of the Department of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a former curator at the Students’ Biennale at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Her solo curatorial venture Soft City opened at Range Gallery, Kolkata in 2015. She is currently a student at the Royal College of Art, her research and curatorial interests revolve around narrative image making.
Paramita Satpathy Tripathy is an influential voice in Odia Literature, having published seven collections of stories, two novels and a collection of poems. She is widely translated into English, Hindi and other Indian languages. Paramita has represented Odia Literature in many literary forums across India and abroad, including seminars organised by Sahitya Akademi, National Book Trust and others. Among other awards, in 2016 Paramita received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award.
Mandakranta Sen is a prominent voice in contemporary Bengali literature. Her literary engagement spans various genres: she has authored 19 collections of poems, eight novels, two volumes of short fiction and a book of essays. She works as a translator, playwright, lyricist, composer, cover designer and editor of a little magazine, and her work has been widely translated.
Arunava Sinha translates classic, modern and contemporary Bengali fiction, non-fiction and poetry from India and Bangladesh into English. Thirty-seven of his translations have been published so far in India, four in the UK, and three in the USA. Two of his translations, Chowringhee (by Sankar) and Seventeen (by Anita Agnihotri) have won the Crossword Prize for Best Book in Translation. His translation of When The Time Is Right (by Buddhadeva Bose) has won the Muse India Best Translated Book award. He edits the India List of translated Indian literature from Seagull Books, Calcutta, and the Library of Bangladesh series of translated Bangladeshi literature from Bengal Lights Books, Dhaka. He has taught a course in Indian Literature in Translation at Ashoka University, India, and has conducted translation workshops in India, Bangladesh, the UK and the US, in association with Writers’ Centre, Norwich, the British Centre for Literary Translation, Norwich, the Dhaka Translation Centre, Bangladesh, and the University of Chicago, USA. He is the Books Editor of the politics and culture magazine Scroll.in.
