Shahnaz Habib is an Indian essayist, fiction writer, travel writer, and translator based in the United States of America. She teaches writing at Bay Path University [1] and The New School, [2] and works as a consultant for the United Nations. [3] In 2018, she received the JCB Prize for Literature.
Habib grew up in Kerala, South India and is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Her poem Of Hypocrisy and Cheekbones won the First Prize in the Ninth National Poetry Competition in 2000 organized by The Poetry Society (India) in collaboration with British Council. [4] Her short story "Something Special About Sayyida" was selected for the anthology 21 under 40. [5] Her essays, travel writing, and criticism have appeared in The Guardian , [6] The New Yorker , [7] Afar , the anthology Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers, [8] and many other publications. [9] [10] Her work has twice been named to the Notable Essays and Literary Nonfiction list by the Best American Essays series. [11] [12]
Her English translation of the novel Jasmine Days, from the Malayalam original by the author Benyamin, won the 2018 JCB Prize for Literature, [13] [14] which each year recognizes a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer working in English or translated fiction by an Indian writer.
She was awarded the New American Voices Award in 2024 by the Institute for Immigration Research in the US for her nonfiction book Airplane Mode. [15]
Lia Purpura is an American poet, writer and educator. She is the author of four collections of poems, four collections of essays and one collection of translations. Her poems and essays appear in AGNI, The Antioch Review, DoubleTake, FIELD, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, Orion Magazine, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Ploughshares. Southern Review, and many other magazines.
Linda K. Hogan is an American poet, storyteller, academic, playwright, novelist, environmentalist and writer of short stories. She previously served as the Chickasaw Nation's writer in residence. Hogan is a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry.
Ninth Letter is a literary magazine that publishes poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. It is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the School of Art + Design and the Creative Writing Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Ninth Letter exists in two related but distinct forms: a biannual print magazine and a website that features new electronic content on a continuous basis. In 2004, the first issue was published. It included fiction from Pulitzer Prize recipient Robert Olen Butler, Katherine Vaz, and an interview with Yann Martel, the author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi.
Alexander Chee is an American fiction writer, poet, journalist and reviewer.
Tracy K. Smith is an American poet and educator. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019. She has published five collections of poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 volume Life on Mars. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was published in 2015.
Kei Miller is a Jamaican poet, fiction writer, essayist and blogger. He is also a professor of creative writing.
Kamala Surayya , popularly known by her one-time pen name Madhavikutty and married name Kamala Das, was an Indian poet in English as well as an author in Malayalam from Kerala, India. Her fame in Kerala primarily stems from her short stories and autobiography, My Story, whereas her body of work in English, penned under the pseudonym Kamala Das, is renowned for its poems and candid autobiography. She was also a widely read columnist and wrote on diverse topics including women's issues, child care, politics, etc. Her liberal treatment of female sexuality, marked her as an iconoclast in popular culture of her generation. On 31 May 2009, aged 75, she died at Jehangir Hospital in Pune.
Meghan O'Rourke is an American nonfiction writer, poet and critic.
Kathleen Rooney is an American writer, publisher, editor, and educator.
Patrick Deeley is an Irish poet.
Benny Daniel, better known by his pen name Benyamin, is an Indian writer in Malayalam from Kerala. He is the author of about thirty books in various genres – from short stories to novels and memoirs. For his novel Goat Days (Aadujeevitham), he won the Abu Dhabi Sakthi Award, Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award and JCB Prize, and was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. The novel Manthalirile 20 Communist Varshangal won the Vayalar Award in 2021.
Peter Grandbois is an American writer, editor, academic, fencer and fencing coach.
Beth Ann Fennelly is an American poet and prose writer and was the Poet Laureate of Mississippi.
Valeria Luiselli is a Mexican-American author. She is the author of the book of essays Sidewalks and the novel Faces in the Crowd, which won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Luiselli's 2015 novel The Story of My Teeth was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Best Translated Book Award, and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Fiction, and she was awarded the Premio Metropolis Azul in Montreal, Quebec. Luiselli's books have been translated into more than 20 languages, with her work appearing in publications including, The New York Times, Granta, McSweeney's, and The New Yorker. Her book Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. Luiselli's 2019 novel, Lost Children Archive won the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
Annie Zaidi is an English-language writer from India. Her novel, Prelude To A Riot, won the Tata Literature Live! Awards for Book of the Year 2020. In 2019, she won The Nine Dots Prize for her work Bread, Cement, Cactus and in 2018 she won The Hindu Playwright Award for her play, Untitled-1. Her non-fiction debut, a collection of essays, Known Turf: Bantering with Bandits and Other True Tales, was short-listed for the Vodafone Crossword Book Award in 2010.
Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar is an Indian writer.
Juggernaut Books is a publisher headquartered in New Delhi, India. Starting with digital books distributed via its website and mobile apps, it turned to publishing physical books later.
JCB Prize for Literature is an Indian literary award established in 2018. It is awarded annually with ₹2,500,000 (US$30,000) prize to a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer working in English or translated fiction by an Indian writer. The winners will be announced each November with shortlists in October and longlists in September. It has been called "India's most valuable literature prize". Rana Dasgupta is the founding Literary Director of the JCB Prize. In 2020, Mita Kapur was appointed as the new Literary Director.
Priya Sarukkai Chabria is an Indian poet, translator and novelist writing in English, and a curator. She has written four poetry collections, two speculative fiction novels, translations from Classical Tamil, literary nonfiction, and a novel. She has edited two poetry anthologies. She is also founding editor of Poetry at Sangam, an Indian online literary journal of poetry.
Jasmine Days is a 2014 Malayalam novel by Benyamin and translated into English by Shahnaz Habib. It tells the story of Sameera Parvin, a young Pakistani woman who works as a radio jockey in an unnamed Middle Eastern country which is on the verge of revolution. First published in 2014 as Mullappoo Niramulla Pakalukal, the novel won the inaugural JCB Prize. It was published by Juggernaut Books.
