Timeri Murari
Timeri N Murari has an eventful career that has seen him in diverse roles - journalist, writer, filmmaker and playwright. He began his career as a journalist at The Kingston Whig Standard in Ontario, Canada and lived abroad for the most part of his life. He has published works of fiction and non-fiction that reflect his own broad spectrum of experience. His novel ‘Taj, A story of Mughal India’, was translated into twenty-one languages.His memoir, ‘My Temporary Son’, published in 2006, explores his relationship with a desperately ill orphan. Murari has also written and produced the film ‘Daayra’ in Hindi, which was later given a stage version called ‘The Square Circle’ which he directed himself. TIME magazine chose the production as one of the top ten of the year. In 2002, he was given the R K Narayan Award for his novels and for his work in cinema and theatre. He returned to India in 1988 and lives in Chennai.
In his latest work of fiction, ‘The Taliban Cricket Club’(May 2012), he portrays cricket as a metaphor for everything that Taliban isn’t. Set in a war-torn Kabul during the Taliban regime, the story is narrated through the voice of a young woman who refuses to be silenced by the dictatorship. The author juxtapose the sense of democracy in cricket against the Taliban’s terrorist regime. Murari endows Rukhsana, the protagonist of the story, with his own love of the game that he played for years.
Nilanjana Roy
Humans are known as ‘Bigfeet’ in the animal kingdom that she creates. They merely occupy the margins of a world populated by a network of species that follow an inviolate, ancient code of conduct. At the centre stage is a small band of cats that live in the alleys, ruins and by-lanes of Nizamuddin in Delhi. In her debut novel, ‘The Wildings’, literary critic and journalist Nilanjana Roy deftly weaves the realistic aura around the animal world by infusing her narrative with the authenticity of non-fiction.
Roy writes a literary column for The Business Standard and for The International Herald Tribune’s Female Factor series. She also had a literary blog called ‘Kitabkhana’ which she wrote under the pseudonym Hurree Babu. Roy hails from Kolkata and spent many years as journalist and editor with various publications before switching to a freelance writing.
Farrukh Dhondy
Farrukh Dhondy’s literary output is marked by his engagement with the subject of cultural identity. A British writer, playwright and activist, Dhondy’s Indian Parsi descent echoes through his narratives. His works include books for children, young adults and adults, plays for theatre and screenplays for film and television. While doing his masters at the Leicester University, Dhondy became involved with the Indian Workers’ Association and later, in London, with the British Black Panther movement.He eventually joined the publication Race Today in 1970 where he discovered his calling as a writer on race-related themes.
A columnist, Dhondy has also earned repute as the biographer of social theorist and activist C L R James. During his time with Channel Four, he wrote the comedy series Tandoori Nights (1985-87) for the channel, which revolved around the rivalry between two curry house owners. His children’s stories include KBW (Keep Britain White), a study of a young white boy’s response to anti-Bengali racism. Dhondy has also published his translation of selections from the Sufi poet Jalaluddin Rumi titled, ‘Rumi: a New Translation’. Dhondy has repeatedly harped on the “barbaric interpretation of Islam” in his non-fiction writing, and has urged for a “revolution within Islamic thinking itself”.
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