Creative Lives : Interviews With Contemporary South Asian Diaspora Writers

South Asian diasporic writing―poetry, fiction, literary theory, and drama by writers from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka now living in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the USA―is one of the most vibrant areas of contemporary world literature. In this volume, eighteen acclaimed writers from this tradition are interviewed by experts in the field about their political, thematic, and personal concerns as well as their working methods and the publishing scene. The book also includes an authoritative introduction to the field, and essays on each writer and interviewer.

The interviewers and interviewees are: Rukhsana Ahmad, Maryam Mirza, Michelle Cahill, Chris Ringrose, Shankari Chandran, Birte Heidemann, Amit Chaudhuri, Pavan Kumar Malreddy, R. Cheran, Aparna Halpé, Suneeta Peres da Costa, Reshmi Lahiri-Roy, Sulari Gentill, Angela Savage, Romesh Gunesekera, Susheila Nasta, Kaiser Haq, Mohammad A. Quayum, Tabish Khair, Mridula Koshy, Neel Mukherjee, Anjali Joseph, Karthika Naïr, Laetitia Zecchini, Mariam Pirbhai, Sehba Sarwar, Rajith Savanadasa, Alexandra Watkins, Sungchuk Kyi, Ruth Gamble, Samrat Upadhyay, and Prakash Subedi.

A former Australian Commonwealth Scholar from Sri Lanka, Chandani Lokuge is currently Associate Professor in Creative Writing and Literary Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. She has also held guest professorships in Germany, France, and the USA. She is the author of 16 books, including her novels My Van Gogh (2019), Softly as I Leave You (Winner of Sri Lanka's Godage National Literary Award for Best Novel 2013), and If the Moon Smiled (Shortlisted for New South Wales Premier’s Prize) and a recent book of essays, Mediating Literary Borders: Asian Australian Writing.

Chris Ringrose was educated at Cambridge University and the University of Alberta, and has held posts at Dalhousie University, the University of North Carolina, and the University of Northampton. He is currently Adjunct Associate Professor of English at Monash University. His poetry and short fiction have won awards in England, Canada, and Australia, and he has published critical work on modern fiction, literary theory, and children’s literature. He co-edits the Journal of Postcolonial Writing and ibidem’s book series Studies in World Literature. His most recent book of poetry is Palmistry (2019).