Srilata K | |
|---|---|
 Srilata in 2016 | |
| Born | Ranchi |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation(s) | Academic, Poet, Author |
K. Srilata (also known as Srilata Krishnan) is an Indian poet, fiction writer, translator and academic based in Chennai. [1] Her poem, In Santa Cruz, Diagnosed Home Sick won the First Prize in the All India Poetry Competition (organized by the British Council and The Poetry Society (India)) in 1998. [2] She has also been awarded the Unisun British Council Poetry Award (2007) and the Charles Wallace writing residency at the University of Sterling (2010). [3] Her debut novel Table for Four was long-listed in 2009 for the Man Asian Literary Prize and released in 2011. [4] [5]
Contents
- Career
- Bibliography
- Poetry Collections
- Fiction
- Non-Fiction
- Translations
- Academic/Editing
- Featured in
- Stories
- References
- Sources
Srilata’s most recent collection of poems, Footnotes to the Mahabharata , [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] was published by Westland/Context in 2025. The collection is made up of five poetic sequences which explore the interior lives of Alli, Hidimbi, Draupadi, Gandhari and Kunti and is shaped around what remains unexamined or invisible within extant interpretations. The poems use as their starting point, off-centre interpretations, revised and altered tales. Footnotes to the Mahabharata opens with a sequence based on Alli, a character exclusive to the Tamil, Dravidian tradition, not on the map of the mainstream Mahabharata. The book inspired a performative reading by Madras Players, a theatre group based in Chennai.
Translator, scholar and writer Arshia Sattar writes of the book:
“Srilata's polished gems illuminate the inner world of the Mahabharata, where the women live and love and wait and watch.”
Poet, fabulist and librettist Karthika Nair says:
“In Footnotes to the Mahabharata, K. Srilata draws readers into the inner, intimate, worlds of some of the Mahabharata’s most compelling women whose choices and destinies power the narrative even in the canonical tellings, although they are usually denied the space there to express themselves.”
Poet and award-winning author Arundhathi Subramaniam writes:
“In her new work, K Srilata adds her voice to the mounting cultural imperative to transform footnotes into mainstream narratives, cameos into protagonists. Shadowy female figures of the Mahabharata seize the spotlight, making sure we get their stories right this time around.”
The poems in Srilata’s earlier collection Three Women in a Single-Room House, published by Sahitya Akademi in 2023, [11] [12] [13] [14] trace the bitter-sweet shape of family and female lineage. The poet Ranjit Hoskote describes this collection thus:
“K Srilata’s new collection of poems is animated by the courage, the resilience, and the tragic yet unbowed wisdom of women – individuals who have had to resist the unforgiving pressures of a patriarchal, hierarchical society, and to flourish despite the constraints such a society seeks to impose on the female subjectivity…As memoir, as elegy, as prayer, as hymn, these poems mark yet another milestone on the journey of a very fine poet who, in her pensive quietude, claims our complete attention.”
Her critically acclaimed book This Kind of Child: The ‘Disability’ Story , which brought together first-person accounts, interviews and short fiction on the disability experience, was published by Westland in 2022. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] Srilata’s poems have been widely anthologized and featured in collections such as The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets and The Penguin Book of Indian Poets .
A Fulbright pre-doctoral scholar at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Srilata has a masters and a PhD in Literature from the University of Hyderabad. Formerly a Professor of Literature at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Srilata took early retirement in order to focus more fully on her writing. She has been a participating writer at the Jaipur Literary Festival, the Bangalore Literary Festival, the Seoul International Writers Festival, the Sahitya Akademi’s International Literature Festival, the Hindu Lit for Life festival, the Hyderabad Literary Festival and the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.