7 - 10 December 2017 , Thu - Sun.
GALF 2017 : Speakers | Performances / Exhibition | Partners | Register Now | Programme | Media Coverage | Videos | Report
Photo Gallery: Inaugural Day | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3
Subodh Sarkar
Subodh Sarkar is a poet, writer, and editor. He teaches English at City College, Kolkata. Since publishing his first book of poems (1976) in Bengali, he now has 31 books in Bengali and 4 books in English to his credit. Sarkar has edited and guest-edited Indian Literature. He was a Fulbright Fellow for 2016-2017 and taught post-colonial literature at the University of Iowa. He is a recipient of Bangabhushan from the Government of West Bengal (2015); D Litt (Honoris Causa) from University of Gour Banga (2015); and the Gangadhar Meher National Award for Poetry from Sambalpur University (2016). He is now the President of State Kobita Academy, Government of West Bengal. In 2013, Sarkar won the Sahitya Akademi Award for Dwaipayan Hrader Dhare.
Parag Rangnekar
Parag Rangnekar works with the Mineral Foundation of Goa, a charity set up by the mining industry in Goa to address environmental and social concerns of the community residing in the mining belt. He is involved in conceptualizing, formulating, and implementing various social, environmental, infrastructural, and community development programmes in Goa’s mining belt. A post-graduate in Agriculture and in Ecology and Environment, he has several research papers and articles to his credit. Rangnekar is the author of Catalogue on Birds of Goa for the WWF-Goa Chapter and The Photographic Guide to Butterflies of Goa. Rangnekar is Founding President, Goa Bird Conservation Network; Member, Invertebrate Conservation Information Network for South Asia; Expert Member, Goa State Biodiversity Board; and State Co-ordinator (Goa-India) for the Indian Bird Conservation Network.
Volga
Volga (Popuri Lalita Kumari) is Executive Chairperson and founder member of Asmita Resource Centre for Women, and one of the most significant figures in Telugu Literature today. She has authored, edited, and translated more than 50 books. Her novel Sweccha (1987) marks a watershed in women’s writing in Telugu and is now being published in all Indian languages by the National Book Trust. She edited the first volume in feminist philosophy in Telugu: Maku Godalu Levu (1989). Her anthology of stories, Rajakiya Kathalu (1992) paved the way for more feminist stories in Telugu. Her novels include Sahaja (1986); Kanneeti Keratala Vennala (1988); Maanavi (1989); Akasham lo Sagam (1990); and Gulabilu (1993). Volga is the recipient of several awards including the Sahitya Akademi Award (2015) for her short story compilation Vimukta Kadha Samputi in Telugu.
Sanchit Gupta
Sanchit Gupta is the author of The Tree with a Thousand Apples (2016), a commercially and critically acclaimed work of fiction on Kashmir. He is also a screenwriter in Hindi cinema and his screenplay based on his book has been long-listed at Sundance Screenwriters’ Lab 2017, United States. He previously worked in FMCG sales and marketing, and theatre and television production. Gupta’s short stories have been published in Indian Ruminations, Muse India, Contemporary Literary Review India, and Tata Lit Live. His works explore his fascination for global cultures, societal structures, vagaries of the world, and the human mind.
Shafi Shauq
Shafi Shauq is a poet, linguist, translator, and fiction writer. He is the author/translator of over 55 books in Kashmiri, English, Hindi, and Urdu. A PhD in English, he taught at the University of Kashmir for over three decades. Shauq is the recipient of several prestigious awards like the Sahitya Akademi Award in Creative Writing (2006); Bharti Bhasha Saman Award (2007); Sahitya Akademi Translation Award (2007); and Ahad Zargar Award (2011). He has represented Indian literature in several countries including Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, and the UK. He has been associated with prestigious academic projects such as Encyclopaedia of Indian Literature, Medieval Indian Literature, and Oxford Companion to Indian Theatre. Shauq has written scripts and screen-plays for more than 50 television films and serials. His latest work is Kaeshur Lughat (Encyclopaedic Dictionary of the Kashmiri Language).
Saurabh Dube
Saurabh Dube (PhD, Cambridge, 1992) is Research Professor in History at El Colegio de México in Mexico City. He has authored and edited more than 25 books, notably Untouchable Pasts (1998, 2001); Stitches on Time (2004); After Conversion (2010); Subjects of Modernity (2017) alongside Postcolonial Passages (2004); Historical Anthropology (2007); Enchantments of Modernity (2009); and Crime through Time (2013). Dube has been a fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York; the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Warwick; the Indian Institute of Advanced Study; the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study, South Africa; and the Max Weber Kolleg, Germany. Dube has been visiting professor several times at Cornell University and the Johns Hopkins University, and was recently elected to the D D Kosambi Chair in Interdisciplinary Studies (2017-2020) of Goa University.
Victor Rangel-Ribeiro
Victor Rangel-Ribeiro (b. in Goa, 1925), first broke into print in Mumbai in 1946. Having lived under and survived the British and the Portuguese colonial empires, the 92-year-old author regards himself as one of the last of a dying breed: a pre-postcolonial writer. Victor left his heart behind in India when he migrated to the US in 1956: his stories almost always include Indian characters, either here at home, or in the diaspora, with interracial preconceptions driving the plots.
Victor’s fiction and books on music can be found in some of the major libraries of the West, including Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge. A career that began 71 years ago is still ongoing. His latest collection, The Miscreant: Selected Stories, 1949-2016, published this year, will be followed next April by his biography of the artist Francis Newton Souza; a second novel is nearing completion
Odette Mascarenhas
Odette Mascarenhas is a TV host, columnist, food critic, and author with 10 books of different genres to her credit. She won the Special Jury Award 2008 at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards for her first book Masci: The Man Behind the Legend. Another book, The Culinary Heritage of Goa (2014) won her the Gourmand Award for historical recipes. She has also written the The Shadow of the Temptress (2016). Mascarenhas is the co-founder of the Goan Culinary Club, which is dedicated to preserving the authenticity of Goan cuisine and researching long-lost recipes. She is he co-curator for ‘Food as Art’ for the Serendipity Arts festival. Mascarenhas is the recipient of the Orchid Award 2017 for Women Achievers in the field of Art and Culture, and the Trinity Medallion for outstanding contribution towards Goan cuisine.
Hema Myer Sood
Hema Myer Sood has written six books in the genre of New Age philosophy. These are: The Eternal Ocean of Brahma (1994); Lord Krishna’s Cosmic Drama (1996); The Revelation on Shivarathri Night (1996). The first two books of the Karmic City trilogy were released in 2015. The City of Lord Brahma and The City of Lord Vishnu use the genre of fiction to acquaint the reader with profound insights of ancient Indian philosophy. Karmic Cords with Warren Hitesh Myer is her sixth book. Sood is completing her seventh book, a historical thriller, that uniquely interweaves three timelines. She is also a certified Reiki Grandmaster and practices channeling. She is based in Goa.
Manohar Shetty
Manohar Shetty is a Goa-based poet and widely considered one of the most prominent among those writing in English. His new collection of poems Full Disclosure: New and Collected Poems (1981-2017) was published recently. In addition to several poetry volumes such as Morning Light (2016); Personal Effects (2015); Living Room: Poems (2014); and Creatures Great and Small (2014); Shetty has edited Ferry Crossing: Short Stories from Goa (1998) and Goa Travels: Being the Accounts of Travellers from the 16th to the 21st Century (2014). His poems have been translated into Finnish, German, Italian, Marathi, and Slovenian. Shetty has been a Homi Bhabha Fellow and Senior Sahitya Akademi Fellow.
