5 - 7 December 2019 , Thu - Sat.
GALF 2019 : Speakers | Programme | Partners | Performances | Artwork | Videos
Photo Gallery: Inaugural Day | Day 1 | Day 2
Damyanti Biswas
Damyanti Biswas is a writer, editor and social activist. Her literary crime novel You Beneath Your Skin published by Simon & Schuster is just out. Damyanti is also one of the editors of the international Forge Literary Magazine and works for a charity helping Delhi’s underprivileged children. She speaks passionately on the subjects of gender, violence, race and poverty. Earlier drafts of You Beneath Your Skin, were long-listed for the Mslexia Novel Competition and the Bath Novel Award, and the writing was helped by a grant from the National Arts Council of Singapore. Damyanti’s short stories have been published in anthologies and journals around the world, including Litro, Griffith Review, Bluestem and others. She has also been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Mamata Verelekar
Mamata Verelekar is an assistant professor in Hindi at Government College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Sanquelim, Goa. She has done her masters in Hindi from Goa University. She recently presented a paper at a national seminar held at Goa University which spoke about cinematic translation of literature where she focused on films by filmmaker Mani Kaul. She is passionate about literature and blogs about Konkani poems on her blog-Mhajokonso.wordpress.com
Albertina Almeida
Albertina Almeida is a lawyer, human rights activist, independent researcher and rights sensitiser. She holds a doctorate in law and teaches ‘Gender, Human Rights and Law’ for the MA in Women’s Studies programme at Goa University. She is also a member of the Board of Studies, Department of Women’s Studies, Goa University. Albertina engages and addresses meetings, symposia and workshops on social justice and rights issues. Among others, she is a Focal Point of the Feminist Law Programme of the Asia-Pacific Forum on Women Law and Development. She writes regularly for local periodicals and occasionally for the national media. Her writings can be accessed on the website of The Alzulaij Collective. She is the author of Tug and Tear: Dealing with Child Sexual Abuse (2008). Albertina has co-founded several rights initiatives and groups interrogating ‘development’, including Bailancho Saad, Citizens’ Initiatives for Communal Harmony, Saad Aangan, and SEZ Watch. She is also a legal consultant to various organizations working on gender and child rights issues, migrant concerns, transgender rights, and human rights. She has also been a part of official and civil society committees for advocacy and drafting of laws for women and children.
Ramita Gurav
Ramita Gurav is an associate professor at Xavier’s College, Mapusa, where she is teaching Hindi for more than 20 years now. She has also done her Ph.D. in Contemporary Hindi Theatre. She has presented papers on topics related to literature, theatre and media studies to various state, national and international seminars. She has done translations of Konkani poems, short stories and Marathi short stories in Hindi. She has also directed dramatizations of short stories of writer Premchand and poems by Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh.
Gabriel Rosenstock
Born c. 1949, Kilfinane, Co. Limerick, in postcolonial Ireland. Poet, tankaist, haikuist, novelist, essayist, playwright, author/translator of over 180 books, mostly in Irish (Gaelic). Member Aosdána (Irish academy of arts & letters). Former Chairman Poetry Ireland. Prolific translator into Irish of international poetry (among others Ko Un, Seamus Heaney, K. Satchidanandan, Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Iqbal, Hilde Domin, Peter Huchel etc.); plays (Beckett, Frisch, Yeats); songs (Bob Dylan, Kate Bush, The Pogues, Leonard Cohen, Bob Marley, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Drake etc. He initiated the anthology Goa: A Garland of Poems, ed. Rochelle Potkar (The Onslaught Press). Rosenstock’s creative, collaborative work with visual artists and photographers has featured on many platforms, such as The Culturium: https://www.theculturium.com/author/gabriel-rosenstock/ His latest book is Walk with Gandhi, illustrated by Masood Hussain.
Usha Alexander
Usha Alexander is the author of the novels The Legend of Virinara (2018) and Only the Eyes Are Mine (2008); and the novelette, Leaving Idaho (2017). Her writing has been featured in 3 Quarks Daily, Scroll.in, The Punch Magazine, Pangyrus, and White Wall Review. Her life and work have taken her from Vanuatu, a Pacific Island nation, where she taught secondary school science as a US Peace Corps volunteer, to the corporate life of Silicon Valley, where she worked for Apple, and to many points between. She maintains an abiding interest in science, anthropology, and history. Usha grew up in Pocatello, Idaho, a remote little town in the Rocky Mountain region of the USA. Though currently residing in the National Capital Region of India (NCR), she carries her home within herself. You’ll find her on the web at www.ushaalexander.com
Sethumadhavan
Sethu (A.Sethumadhavan) has been writing in Malayalam for the past five decades. A banker by profession and a writer by passion, he has around 40 titles to his credit, consisting of novels and collection of short stories. Many of his works have been translated into other languages, including English, Hindi, German, French and Turkish. His novels translated into English include Pandavapuram, The Saga of Muziris, Aliyah, The Wind from the Hills, Once Upon a Time, The Cuckoo's Nest and Jalasamadhi & other Stories. Kadambari, the Flower Girl is under print. Pandavapuram has already appeared in 10 languages. It has been filmed in Malayalam and Bengali, the latter titled Nirakar Chaaya, which had won recognitions abroad. Four of his works have been filmed, the latest being Jalasamadhi. A winner of all the major awards like the Sahitya Akademi award, Kerala Sahitya Akademi award(twice), etc, he was the former Chairman of the National Book Trust, New Delhi. Joining the State Bank as a Prob. Officer, he had retired as the Chairman & CEO of the South Indian Bank.
Brian Mendonca
Dr. Brian Mendonca currently serves as Assistant Professor of English at Carmel College for Women, Nuvem, Goa. His career in teaching includes working at institutions such as NIOS and Government College, Quepem. Before joining Carmel College he held a number of positions in publishing as a Senior Editor and Consultant for various publishing houses in New Delhi. He holds a Master’s in English from Bombay University and was awarded a Ph.D in English Literature from EFLU, Hyderabad. Dr. Brian is the author of several research papers on film, literature, and music. He is a published writer having two books of poems to his credit. Last Bus to Vasco: Poems from Goa was published in 2006 followed by A Peace of India: Poems in Transit in 2011. He contributes a Sunday column for Gomantak Times Weekender. On Teachers’ day, last year, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for Outstanding Contribution in the Field of Education by the Rotary club of Margao Midtown. Dr Brian is passionate about music and plays the piano and guitar. He is an avid blogger and blogs at lastbustovasco.blogspot.in He savours life with his wife and son in Porvorim.
Augusto Pinto
Augusto Pinto is an Associate Professor of English at Dempo College in Goa. He is a book reviewer, essayist and translator from Konkani into English. He has translated several important Konkani writers over the last 30 years, most recently the short stories of Jayanti Naik in The Salt of the Earth (2017) and the poets Ramesh Veluskar, Soter Barreto and Vishnu Wagh in Goa: A Garland of Poems (2017). He is currently working on a book of plays on the eminent Goan dramatist Pundalik Naik. He is also a member of the Organising Committee of the Ambedkar Memorial Lecture Series that are conducted during GALF.
Hanuman Kambli
Hanuman Kambli teaches art at the Goa College of Art. He is one of India’s foremost print makers and widely regarded as an outstanding artist, painter, and teacher. His works address his personal experiences of Indian mythology and philosophy. Hanuman enjoys an international reputation, and his works have been exhibited in major centres in India and abroad. He is the recipient of several awards and honours. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Western Michigan University (1999); an Artist-in-Residence at the Wimbledon School of Art (1994-95); Lincoln University (2003); and the Central TAFE, Western Australia (2005); and an International Visiting Scholar at the Montclair State University (2009). In 2012, he was conferred with the Rashtriya Swasti Samman (Ujjain, M.P.) for his consistent contributions in the field of visual art form; the Goan Achievers Awards by Navhind Times and Viva Goa for his contributions in the field of art and culture; and in 2013, the Government of Goa conferred its highest award for cultural excellence in the field of fine art. He was a juror for the Seventh Bharat Bhavan International Print-Art Biennial (2006) at Bhopal; and for the 53rd National Exhibition of Art organised by Lalit Kala Academy. Hanuman prepared the original artwork for the eighth edition of the Goa Arts & Literature Festival (GALF).
