Shahnaz Bashir

Shahnaz Bashir is a novelist and scholar of media and communication. ^[1]

Villa Strauelli, Winterthur, Switzerland 2018

Education and work

Shahnaz Bashir is a doctoral fellow and teaching associate in Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass). ^[2] . He is an interdisciplinary teacher and researcher of communication, working at the intersection of AI, visual culture and writing. He teaches communicative writing & critical AI, critical thinking, public speaking and critical theoretical conceptualization of technological communication (via AI and social media). He recently designed and taught "Pixelated Lies (a course on AI & Visual Disinformation)". This course has been officially inducted into UMass’s “AI and Us: Rethinking Research, Work, and Society” Social Science Series as one of the university’s interdisciplinary AI offerings. Shahnaz is an Instructor of Record at UMass and has been awarded several "Letters of Commendation" for "excellent pedagogy" by the Graduate Programs Director at the Department of Communication. Besides, he has been a four-time finalist for the Distinguished Teaching Award in the Graduate Teaching Associate category at UMass. Earlier, the university also awarded him the Research Enhancement and Leadership (REAL) Fellowship. ^[3]

Earlier, in June 2011, Shahnaz Bashir founded the Department of Convergent Journalism at the Central University of Kashmir. ^[4] , launching South Asia’s first specialization in Narrative Journalism. Over two decades, he has designed and taught courses on literary journalism, conflict reporting, and AI-generated visual disinformation across institutions in Kashmir, South India, and the U.S. He has served as an opinion editor for two leading English dailies and is a Contributing Editor at The Punch Magazine.

Kashmir Life, in its Jan 2016 year-ender special issue, declared Shahnaz as "one of the eleven impact-makers from the entire population of Jammu & Kashmir". ^[5]

He is the South Asia juror for the True Story Award, the first-ever global journalism prize instituted in Bern, Switzerland. ^[6]

Critical acclaim on literary achievements

Shahnaz Bashir's fiction has appeared in major anthologies including A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces and The Greatest Indian Stories Ever Told, while his essays and reportage have been published in TIME and other leading platforms. His debut novel The Half Mother (Hachette, 2014) won the Muse India Young Writer Award 2015. ^[7] The book has been translated into several Indian languages and French as La Mère Orpheline, ^{[8] [9] [10]} becoming the first-ever novel from Kashmir to be translated into a foreign (European) language.

Shahnaz Bashir's second book Scattered Souls (HarperCollins, 2016) was longlisted for "Tata Lit Live Award 2017" for Best Book - Fiction. It was conferred with The Citizen's "Talent of the Year Award 2017". ^[11] In April 2018, Kashmir Observer reported "Scattered Souls is the best-selling fiction book in Kashmir till date... Its sales [in the bookstores of Srinagar] have surpassed the other fiction titles by Kashmiri writers writing in English". ^[12] His works of fiction have been compared with Saadat Hasan Manto and Anton Chekov. ^[13] The Asian Age observed: "There are easy comparisons with Manto in the often-shocking glibness with which Bashir lays bare a character's innermost feelings, or with Chekov in the rootedness of the characters to their circumstances." ^[13]

In 2017, Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council awarded him a writer's research residency at Winterthur, Switzerland. ^[14]

Books

• The Half Mother (Hachette, 2014), ^[15]
• Scattered Souls (HarperCollins, 2016), ^[16]
• The Disease (forthcoming...)^{[ citation needed ]}

Book chapters

• Cinema Palladium, Nachbilder: Eine Foto Text Anthologie (Spector Books via Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and Fotomuseum Winterthur 2021), ^[17]
• The Gravestone, A Clutch of Indian Masterpieces (Aleph Book Company 2016), ^[18]

Awards

• Emerging Scholar Award 2024, by Common Ground Research Network, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA ^[19]
• Pro-Helvetia Swiss Arts Council Writer's Residency Award 2018 ^[20]
• The Citizen's Talent of the Year Award 2016-17 ^[21]
• Scattered Souls Longlisted for Tata Lit Live Award Best Book Fiction 2017^{[ citation needed ]}
• Winner of Muse India Young Writer Award 2015 for The Half Mother^{[ citation needed ]}
• Shamim Ahmad Shamim Memorial-Kashmir Times Award 2007^{[ citation needed ]}
• University Gold Medal and Award of Merit for top rank in graduate media studies, class of 2004-2006^{[ citation needed ]}

References

1. Naqushbandi, Ubeer (20 January 2017). "I prefer writing to affect my relationship with life at large: Shahnaz Bashir". The Punch Magazine. Archived from the original on 5 August 2020. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
2. "Shahnaz Bashir". University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Communication. Archived from the original on 24 October 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
3. "Department of Communication - Shahnaz Bashir". University of Massachusetts. Archived from the original on 24 October 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
4. "Faculty: Shahnaz Bashir". Central University of Kashmir. Archived from the original on 30 September 2018. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
5. Raafi, Muhammad (27 October 2016). "Award Winning Author Shahnaz Bashir's 'Scattered Souls' Launched". Kashmir Life. Archived from the original on 11 April 2019. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
6. "Shahnaz Bashir - Jury". True Story Award. Archived from the original on 24 February 2023. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
7. "Author Overview: Shanaz Bashir". HarperCollins Publishers India. Archived from the original on 2 June 2023. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
8. "The Half Mother by Shahnaz Bashir (Translated by Geetanjali Vaishampayan)". Payal Books. Archived from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
9. "Kanniti Kashmir lo Oka Amma by Shahnaz Bashir". Logili Telugu Books. Archived from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
10. "La Mère Orpheline". Éditions du Rocher. Archived from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
11. "Novelist Shahnaz Bashir wins Talent of the Year Award". Kashmir Observer. 9 March 2017. Archived from the original on 30 May 2023. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
12. "Scattered Souls is the best-selling fiction book in Kashmir till date". 23 April 2018.
13. Attari, Karishma (22 January 2017). "Book review: A snapshot of Kashmir with a time and date stamp". The Asian Age. Archived from the original on 15 February 2020. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
14. "Shahnaz Bashir - Research Residency 2018". Pro Helvetia. 2018. Archived from the original on 27 March 2023. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
15. "The Half Mother: A Novel by Shahnaz Bashir". Hachette India. Archived from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
16. "Scattered Souls by Shahnaz Bashir". HarperCollins India. Archived from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
17. "Nachbilder". Spector Books. Archived from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
18. "Shahnaz Bashir". The Punch Magazine. Archived from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
19. "Emerging Scholar Awards 2024". The Image Conference. Archived from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
20. "Ich wünschte, ich wäre unter normalen Umständen aufgewachsen". Landbote. 14 February 2018. Archived from the original on 1 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
21. "Citizen's Talent of the year Award 2016-17". Kashmir Observer. Retrieved 30 September 2025.