IAAC Literary Festival 2026

Rachel Gurjar is a chef and food writer from Mumbai, India, currently based in Brooklyn, New York. After attending the Culinary Institute of America, she worked in numerous New York City restaurants, including ABC Kitchen, then was a food editor at Bon Appétit. She now works as a freelance writer and recipe developer. Her work has been featured in Bon Appetit, Food52, The Kitchn, and Forbes, among other outlets, and she has appeared on Good Morning America and NPR.

A joyful celebration of the immigrant experience told through the universal language of food. Brimming with raw, beautiful storytelling and 101 Indian-inspired recipes that draw on a global pantry and burst with flavor, this immersive cookbook will fill your heart and table.

"East to East is more than a collection of recipes. It’s a reclamation, a love letter, and a sharp meditation on what it means to build a life between cultures. Rachel’s food feels grounded in tradition yet alive in the present, inviting us to cook with curiosity, care, and a great deal of pride." ―Andy Baraghani, New York Times bestselling author of The Cook You Want to Be

Mumbai-raised, New York City–based chef Rachel Gurjar shares the triumphs, hardships, and delicious discoveries that come from leaving your home and navigating a foreign country. Through inventive dishes that seamlessly blend the foods of her childhood and travels with beloved American staples, Gurjar’s cooking showcases the tantalizing possibilities that arise when cultures collide. Recipes for dishes ranging from condiments, snacks, and breads to entrees, drinks, and desserts include:

- Salmon Red Kari
- Paneer with Sungold Tomatoes and Basil
- Chicken Kebab Caesar Salad
- Shrimp Biryani with Pineapple Raita
- Spicy Butter Masala Pasta
- Dirty Chai Espresso Martinis
- Cardamom Sticky Toffee Cake

Stunning photography enlivens these recipes and transports you to the streets and stoops of New York City and the beaches and markets of Mumbai. Written with honesty, passion, and vulnerability, East to East is both a tribute to the immigrant experience with all its highs and lows and a universal tale of resilience, courage, and identity. With this sumptuous guide, Rachel’s food—creative, balanced, complex-tasting, and always appealing—comes to your kitchen.

HIGHLY COOKABLE RECIPES: Discover accessible dishes perfect for weeknight dinners and weekend hosting. This game-changing cookbook brings Indian food into your repertoire with a fresh spin and approachable instruction.

FLAVORFUL FOOD: From Sweet and Sour Pomegranate Chex Mix to Cheesy Masala Eggs, Lamb Keema Taco Bowls, Cardamom Sticky Toffee Cake, and Haldi Doodh, these 100+ Indian and Indian-inspired recipes draw on global flavor.

"Gurjar writes from a reflective, earnest place about navigating the two cities―the significance of cultural preservation, and how cooking brought her closer to herself. This intimate storytelling sits alongside a range of recipes: traditional family ones and thoughtful riffs on American classics.” ―Bon Appétit

"Good cookbooks will inspire you to get into your kitchen and start cooking. Great cookbooks will transport you to places you have never been, and, suddenly, you can’t be anywhere else. Rachel’s cookbook, though, has done something unprecedented: It has energized me to see the world in a new way, to take my palate (and my pantry) on an adventure, and to spend more time getting to know the people behind the food I am cooking. As I cook through these recipes, the scents and the stories swirl together to make something unbelievably satisfying." ―Dan Pelosi, New York Times bestselling author of Let's Eat and Let's Party

Manil Suri is the author of three internationally acclaimed novels including The Death of Vishnu, and a book on popular mathematics, The Big Bang of Numbers. His work has been translated into 27 languages and received several honors, including winning the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize, and being longlisted for the Booker Prize.

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Manil Suri is the author of the memoir, A Room in Bombay, three internationally acclaimed novels, The Death of Vishnu, The Age of Shiva and The City of Devi, and a book on popular mathematics, The Big Bang of Numbers. His work has been longlisted for the Booker Prize, shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner, Lambda Literary, and PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Awards, and won the McKittrick Prize and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, among others. He has served as a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times and is an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Book Reviews
"Drawing on the 2,711 letters that his mother cherished, Suri has created a probing memoir about his family, especially the deep bond between him and his mother; his homosexuality; and the uncanny hold the apartment exerted on them all. . . . an empathetic portrait of his parents’ entrapment, and a candid account of his struggle to be responsible to them, and to himself." ― Kirkus

"In the Hindu epic, The Ramayan, Shravan exemplifies a devoted son, caring for his aging blind parents. That renowned novelist Suri mentions Shravan’s story in his moving memoir reflects the guilt he struggles with as he immigrated to the U.S. . . . Suri emerges as a Shravan for our times, demonstrating extraordinary patience and service to his parents under severely trying circumstances." ― Booklist

"Suri expertly parallels the apartment's combination of claustrophobia and coziness with his conflicted feelings about his aging parents . . . His portrait of [his mother] is clear-eyed and prismatic, highlighting both her sweetness and her intensity. Readers will find this a moving consideration of the ties that bind." ― Publishers Weekly

"In an effort to make the distance between himself and his parents more bearable, Suri writes letters -- more than 2,700 of them, all addressed to Prem. They show the richness, honesty and humor of his life. You will remember A ROOM IN BOMBAY long after you put it down as you consider your own understanding of home." ― Bookreporter

"Drawing from thousands of letters sent over three decades, Suri’s memoir revisits the single room in a crumbling, crowded apartment in Bombay (now Mumbai) that his family shared. Part prison, part haven, the room is imbued with deeper meaning as Suri wrestles with his enduring love for his mother." ― New York Times

"Rooms in Bombay are not big in size, but huge in heart. Manil Suri’s memoir will make you want to hug your mother. Written in clean, direct prose and without sentimentality, it explores all the dimensions of the complicated bond between parent and child―while also being laugh out loud funny. If you were born of a mother, read this book." ― Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found

Sanjay Srivatsa runs Kisan Organics LLC to help industry improve carbon, water, energy footprints, providing technical and capex risk assessments.

He was born in India, graduated with a BS in Chemical Engineering, ACTech Madras and MS ChE, IIT Chicago. He joined Nalco in 1979 as a Researcher and was promoted to Group Leader in 1984. Sanjay earned Researcher of the Year awards in 1981 and '82. In 1986, he was promoted to Market Development Manager for the Light Industry Market. In 1989, Sanjay was awarded Marketer of the Year. In 1991 Sanjay joined Sales and was promoted to District Manager in 1997 after successive years of sales accolades, achieving 'All Pro' status, District Salesman of the Year as well as Chairman's Club award. In 1998, Sanjay was promoted to General Manager and Country Manager of Nalco India. Sanjay returned to the US in 2002 retiring from Nalco in the subsequent year. In the next 8 years, Sanjay worked for Tyco (Earthtech), Ecovation and GWE developing his skills in Anaerobic Design and infrastructure management. In 2011 Sanjay returned to Nalco to develop Integrated Water Management services focusing on clients' sustainability goals. After retiring from Nalco (now an Ecolab company) in 2020, Sanjay joined Solecta as Vice President offering process membrane solutions 'Co-Creating' sustainable and disruptive applications. Today Sanjay runs a consultancy Kisan Organics LLC, to help industry improve carbon, water, energy footprints, providing technical/Capex risk assessments.

For his work in facilitating a remote IIT campus in Bangalore, India, Sanjay was awarded the International Alum of the Year in 2004. Sanjay served on the board of ISBT (Bevtech) since 2021-25. Sanjay enjoys composing music, producing and public speaking. He is the author of two books, the prior published in 2010: A 'Mischievous Chicken'.

I have dedicated my career to the study of Indian aesthetics, philosophical traditions, and the cultural heritage of Kashmir. After serving in senior academic positions at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, INDIA for about three decades, I have continued to publish extensively. The title of my first book published in 1987 is, “Buddhist Savants of Kashmir and their Contributions Abroad". My recent works include the edited volume, "Asian Aesthetic Theories and Art Forms" published by IGNCA & D K Printworld (jointly) in 2021 and my latest book, लल्लेश्वरी के वाख़ was published by the Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi in 2024. It includes the Hindi verse translation of a collection of Kashmiri Vakhs of the14th century Saiva Yogini of Kashmir -Lalded.

Most recently, I conceptualized, curated and edited the commemoration volume titled, “Kapila Jnanagarbha: Knowledge Unfolding Wisdom – Offerings in Memory of Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan". It was Published in February 2026 by one of the leading publishers of Indological book known as Dev Books. The first copy of this volume was presented to His Holiness the Dalai Lama on April 27th at his residence in Macleod Ganj. The Dalai Lama used to address Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan as ‘Mataji’. A formal release and panel discussion on this volume was held at the India International Centre (IIC), New Delhi on May 21st. The volume serves as a comprehensive document reflecting the vision and contributions of Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, one of India’s leading visionary personalities whose contributions have been immense in the restoration and preservation of India’s holistic art and culture at various levels.

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Kapilā Jñānagarbhā is the bouquet of variegated hues presented in the form of a volume of offerings to Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan by eminent personalities, expert scholars and artistes, also her family to keep the fragrance of her vision and contributions fresh and vibrating to inspire future generations. The title, Kapilā Jñānagarbhā: Knowledge Unfolding Wisdom, in itself celebrates the core qualities of the personality whom we have seen in constant search for knowledge till her last breath. Through her wisdom she made use of her acquired knowledge at various levels and in innumerable ways for reviving and saving India’s holistic traditions of knowledge. In achieving her goals, it was her education in the West, that provided her the critical tools and the ability to analyse things from multiple points of view and the learning in India equipped her at the experiential level. Her contributions are immense. Present volume is divided into two parts. Part I has two sections. The section A contains the Tributes by eminent persons and section B has ten papers by eminent scholars highlighting Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan’s vision and contributions. Part II contains academic papers by the scholars, experts in their respective fields, who have remained closely associated with Dr. Vatsyayan and have got benefited or influenced by her knowledge and wisdom by one way or the other. Part II is arranged in the Sections: C on Veda: The Source of Knowledge; D on Sastra/Theory and Prayoga/Praxis; E on Kashmir Śaivism; F on Indian Aesthetics; and G on Culture and Civilization.

Brinda Charry was born and raised in Bangalore, India. She came to the United States as a graduate student in 1999 and has lived here since. Brinda's earlier work in fiction included a number of short stories published in magazines and newspapers and broadcast over radio, as well as two novels (THE HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR and NAKED IN THE WIND) and a collection of short fiction (FIRST LOVE AND OTHER STORIES, which were published by Penguin (India) and Harper Collins (India). After these publications, Brinda took a break from creative work to focus on academic writing and published a number of books and articles in her field of research (the works of Shakespeare and contemporaries). In 2020 she decided to return to fiction. Her novel THE EAST INDIAN, on the first South Asian on record to arrive in North America (in 1635) was published in 2023 by Scribner (USA), Scribe (UK), Harper Collins (India). HOCUS POCUS (forthcoming, August 2026) is her second novel to be published in the USA. Brinda has won several awards and recognitions for her fiction: these include the Katha Award For Creative Fiction (twice), a prize in the BBC short story contest, Commonwealth Broadcasting Association Prize, Hindu-Picador prize, India Plaza Golden Quill award. THE EAST INDIAN was longlisted for the JCB Prize, the Mark Twain Voice in American Literature Prize, shortlisted for the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize and the Crossword Prize, and won the Society of American Historians Prize (formerly James Fenimore Cooper Prize) for Historical Fiction. Brinda now lives in New Hampshire.

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A young magician travels across the world seeking fame and fortune all the while hiding a secret, in a novel based on the renowned, real-life Indian stage magicians performing in the United States in the 1800s Samuel Thomas, a young magician of uncertain parentage journeys from India to the fog-shrouded streets of Boston in 1816, the infamous Year Without a Summer. In this season of unrelenting cold, Samuel arrives in a city alive with ambition, contradiction, and tension. Enter Walter Mepham, proprietor of the New Boston Museum which is on the brink of bankruptcy. Walter thinks Samuel is the ideal fit for the first live addition to the collection. While the perfect solution to each other's problems, the relationship between the two men quickly becomes complicated. Richly detailed and vividly conjured, Hocus Pocus is a story about art, ambition, and desire, and captures the crackling energy and wonder of a bygone era through the eyes of a young performer.

Kiran Merchant, an architect turned filmmaker, is a writer, director, and producer whose creative life spans more than four decades and crosses theatre, film, television, and advertising in India, the UK, and the United States. A storyteller with a keen eye for the complexities of human character, Kiran has explored the many ways in which ideas take shape and find expression. He will lead a discussion on creative blocks, their impact on imagination, and strategies to move past them.

Arno Klein, PhD, is a research scientist and the Director of Innovative Technologies at the Child Mind Institute in Manhattan. Dr. Klein has held positions at Columbia University, Stony Brook University, and The New School. He first visited Ellora in 1992 with Professor Walter Spink and has since taken over 10,000 photographs of the site and created the elloracaves.org website.

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Ellora: Cross-Fertilization of Style in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain Cave Temples, is a new book about Ellora, a UNESCO World Heritage Site excavated between 600 CE and 1000 CE and the only cave temple site that houses Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temples. The contributing authors investigate the caves by religion and myth, patronage and support, stylistic influence and exchange, chronology, and the process of carving and completion of these rock-cut temples. The book includes extensive photographic documentation, ground plans, and rarely seen 19th-century archival materials. [Co-edited by Deepanjana Klein and Arno Klein, with contributing authors Nicolas Morrissey, Lisa N. Owen, Vidya Dehejia, and Pia Brancaccio; with a foreword by Naman Ahuja. Contains 203 photographs by Arno Klein, 29 illustrations, and 22 drawings.]

Neeraj Khemlani is former president of CBS News, overseeing 60 Minutes, 48 Hours, Evening News, CBS Mornings, Sunday Morning & Face the Nation. He managed Hearst's cable partnerships with Disney (ESPN and A&E Networks) and later its newspapers. Khemlani ran Yahoo! News and editorial for Yahoo! Finance. He produced award-winning stories for 60 Minutes II, 60 Minutes and ABC News. He is married to author and former ABC News correspondent, Heather Cabot, and they are the proud parents of college-aged twins, Samantha & Ian.

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Here's the text edited to under 1000 characters: --- What if you bought a handful of stocks and left them alone - like stashing valuables in a coffee can? Pick the right ones, and you might wake up with life-changing wealth. Neeraj Khemlani introduces this philosophy through portfolio manager Matt Ankrum, who studied 100-baggers - stocks that multiplied a hundredfold over decades - searching for common traits. He now hunts tomorrow's breakout companies, planning to gift his children a portfolio worth half a billion dollars. *The Coffee Can Investor* lays out Ankrum's process, his stock picks, and the power of compounding and patience. It reveals that many 100-baggers are business-to-business companies, not just consumer-facing names. Khemlani also shares his own coffee can portfolio built for his kids. For anyone who wants to invest in enduring companies for the long term.

Book Reviews
"The Coffee Can Investor is a gem of a book that combines good journalism with strong storytelling. It’s an incredible story of two fathers’ love for their children and their desire to leave them a future as big and bright as the Texas sky." Dan Rather, journalist and former anchor of CBS Evening News

"Don’t view The Coffee Can Investor as telling you what to think, but rather as providing an example of how to think. It describes a logical process for stock selection, to be applied through rigorous implementation and ultra-long-term investment in a limited number of holdings. These are exactly the right elements, and for that reason I heartily recommend Neeraj Khemlani’s book to any would-be stock-picker. There’s just one more thing, though: The process has to prove out. This one just might." Howard Marks, cofounder and cochairman, Oaktree Capital Management, and author of The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor and Mastering the Market Cycle: Getting the Odds on Your Side

"A fascinating approach to growing wealth through the stories of companies that are expected to achieve outsized investment returns. Financial analysis and storytelling make this a must-read for investors." Tapan Bhat, former president and general manager, Yahoo Finance

"This is a wonderful and incredibly useful book. When you turn the final page, you will be awed by the wisdom of one modest Kansas City dad, you will learn valuable lessons about how to invest, and you will admire Neeraj Khemlani for vividly sharing this tale." Ken Auletta, New Yorker writer and best-selling author of Googled: The End of the World As We Know It

"It’s a great book. It’s a fun read. Buy it and read it." The Brian Memorandum

Makarand R. Paranjape has been Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, for over twenty-three years. He also served as the Director, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. The author/editor of over 50 books and hundreds of academic papers, he is also a poet, novelist, columnist, and public intellectual. His latest books include JNU: Nationalism and India’s Uncivil War (Rupa, 2022), Identity’s Last Secret (BluOne, 2022), and Swami Vivekananda: Hinduism and India’s Road to Modernity (HarperCollins, 2020). He has been in touch with the works of Sri Aurobindo and modern India’s spiritual masters for over forty years.

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Hindutva and Hind Swaraj: History’s Forgotton Doubles | The Battle of Ideas in Indian History and Politics | Hindu Identity, Nationalism, and Democracy

Makarand R Paranjape A close reading of the persistent antagonisms in Indian history, Hindutva and Hind Swaraj focuses on the ideological clash between Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, representing the broader ideological, political, and cultural factions within Hindu and Indian society. The central argument is that this antagonism continues to influence national life, both politically and personally, reflecting two contrasting ideologies: Hindutva and Hind Swaraj.

Divided into three parts, the first part addresses the lack of historical records in ancient India and the importance of creating a national history to reclaim India’s past. In the part second part, the author examines the discovery of India’s cultural and historical identity, the impact of colonialism, and the need for a balanced discourse that acknowledges the complexity and diversity of Indian society. While the third looks at the e contemporary political landscape, the rise of Hindutva, and the ongoing struggle between Gandhi’s vision of non-violent resistance and Savarkar’s advocacy of armed rebellion. It highlights the unresolved tensions between these two ideologies and their implications for India’s future.

The book emphasizes the need for a new approach to understanding and reconciling these differences, suggesting that a balanced discourse and a deeper inquiry into the nature of nationalism, democracy, and Indian society are essential for creating a new India.

Sandip Das has been a decorated CEO of Hutchison Essar Telecom, Maxis Communications Berhad, Malaysia and Reliance Jio, having worked across geographies internationally. His distinguished corporate career spanned over three and a half decades across telecommunications, automobiles, and consumer durables. Currently he sits on the boards of listed companies and is a senior advisor to London-based global consultancies. He has a mechanical engineering degree from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela; an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi; and an AMP from Harvard Business School, Boston. He is an avid reader, writer, sports enthusiast, and an eminent corporate public speaker, with active interest in literature, arts, music, photography, cartography, history, and technology.

Alka Jena is a Bhubaneswar-based food writer, photographer, and stylist. She is recognized for her efforts in preserving and promoting Odisha’s culinary heritage. Through her blog CulinaryXpress and food pop-ups across India, she brings forgotten recipes and everyday traditions to modern tables. Her storytelling blends heritage with heart, making food not just a meal but a memory. Growing up, she discovered that recipes are more than instructions; they are stories of love, patience, and resilience passed down through generations. With her lens and words, she captures this essence, reviving seasonal rituals, festive dishes, and everyday meals with equal reverence. Beyond the kitchen, Alka is a senior officer from the Odisha Planning Service, currently serving as deputy director in the Planning and Governance Department, Government of Odisha. With over twenty-five years of experience in public policy and development, she combines her professional insights with her love for food to create a unique voice, one that connects tradition with progress, and heritage with hope.

Pallavi Das lives in New York as a freelance communication strategist and brand consultant, and is part of associate faculty at Columbia University in New York. She has a Bachelors in Fine Arts (BFA) degree from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, USA, majoring in film, animation and video, following which she graduated with a Master of Science (MS) degree from the School of Professional Studies (SPS), Columbia University in strategic communications. She has worked with Huffington Post New York, Leo Burnett, OYO, Born, and NDTV, where she was a breaking news reporter. Pallavi is a gifted writer, artist, photographer, public speaker, and singer.

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In the cradle of India’s eastern coastline lies a land where civilization learned to pray through food. Odisha, or ancient Kalinga, has witnessed dynasties rise and tides retreat, yet its essence endures in the quiet dignity of its kitchens.

The Orissan traces this unbroken lineage of taste and tradition. Each recipe is a fragment of history, born in temple offerings, royal feasts, and humble hearths, carried forward by generations who understood that nourishment is both art and devotion. Interwoven with personal recollections, myths, and forgotten lore, these pages become a chronicle of identity―a journey through time where flavours are the language of memory and every meal a hymn to the land.

To open this book is to rediscover an unsung state―glorious, graceful, and eternal.

Book Reviews
“A fascinating and immersive exploration of Odisha’s culinary culture, where heritage is deeply interwoven with food traditions.” Padma Bhushan Pratibha Ray

“A proud moment for Odisha—this premium edition carries our traditions to a global readership with dignity and sophistication.” Shri Kanak Vardhan Singh Deo

“To call it a book would be gross injustice. Great body of work.” Chef Sanjeev Kapoor

“The Orissan is a unique kind of cultural autobiography that charms, entertains, and informs about the finest things in life.” M.J. Akbar

Beautiful Celebration of Odisha’s Heritage. Deeply Researched.
“A beautiful celebration of Odisha’s heritage, culture, temple traditions and culinary heritage, beautifully bringing history alive through food. A wonderful book for anyone interested in Indian history, culture, food and heritage.” Divya Ohri

Gorgeous heirloom quality of a book.
“A gorgeous book with fantastic commentary, storytelling, visuals and selection of dishes. The research is well done and beautifully presented—a rich and heritage-filled coffee table book. So proud of this book. Congratulations to the team!”A. Mishra

A magnificent tribute to Odisha’s culinary soul
“The Orissan is much more than a cookbook—it’s a beautifully crafted cultural archive bringing together history, temple traditions, regional food, folklore and authentic recipes with remarkable depth and elegance.” Sameer

For every foodie, aesthete and lover of India
“The Orissan deserves every glorious word of accolade it is getting. A beautiful book tracing Odisha’s rich civilization through its unique cuisine, with delightful recipes, stories, exceptional production quality and attention to detail.” Nilima B

The founder of Salt Desert Media Group Ltd., Prabhu Guptara finds his heart still very involved with the country of his birth, India, though his head and his professional work focus on global challenges. For many years, he organised Think Tanks for the largest bank in the world, covering political, economic, social, and technological challenges as well as opportunities which were perceived to have potential for substantial impact on the bank’s performance.

From much earlier than his work for the bank - as well as after his retirement from that position in 2011 – he’s worked as a Boards consultant, as a university teacher, as an independent journalist and broadcaster, and as an organiser, chair and contributor to strategy and leadership events.

That rich and unusual multi-faceted experience informs the publishing programme of Salt Desert Media, which started when he was 71 years old, in memory of his late wife.

Pippa Rann Books & Media, the first imprint, has so far published work covering ageing, business, fiction, memoir, poetry, politics, satire, social reform, and spirituality.

In 2022, he started the second imprint, Global Resilience Publishing – which, as the name suggests, focuses on global challenges.

Salt Desert itself focuses on distribution - both of the publications of its two imprints, and of publications from other entities.

Padmabhushan Dr Pratibha Ray was recently conferred with the prestigiour Fellowship of Sahitya Akademi, the highest and rare honour accorded to the literary immortals of Indian literature which highlights the ceaseless sadhana, signal creative contribution and the readership and recognition across generations. She was conferred with the Fellowship in an exclusive ceremony by Dr Madhab Kaushik, President of Sahitya Akademi at Sanskruti Bhawan in Bhubaneswar.

At any point of time not more than 21 living litterateurs hold this Fellowship in India. From Odisha she is the eighth writer and the first woman writer to be honoured with this Fellowship. A towering figure in Indian literature, her extraordinary creative journey—marked by profound storytelling,deep humanism, and an unwavering engagement with society—has touched countless hearts acrosslanguages and generations. From redefining myth through a contemporary lens to giving voice to thesilenced and marginalized, her body of work stands as a luminous testament to literary excellence andcourage.

The Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, the highest recognition bestowed by the National Academy of Letters, isreserved for the “immortals of Indian literature”—a rare honour limited to only a few living legends at anytime. That she now stands among them is both momentous and deeply deserved.

Pratibha Ray occupies a singular position in modern Odia and Indian literature. Over more than five decades, she has transformed the novel and short story into vehicles for interrogating gender, caste, tribalidentity, mythology, history, faith, ecological catastrophe and the moral dilemmas of contemporary life. Herimportance lies not merely in the size of her oeuvre or in the distinction of her awards, but in her ability totake experiences rooted deeply in Odisha and make them speak to universal questions of dignity, freedom and human identity.

Recent authoritative profiles describe her corpus as extending to 24 novels, 32 collections of short stories,12 travelogues, two poetry collections, five essay collections, an autobiography, two books of Children's Literature and a study of five primitive tribal communities of Odisha.

Her literary achievement has been recognised by virtually every major level of Indian literary and civilian honour: the Odisha Sahitya Akademi Award, Sarala Award, Moortidevi Award, Sahitya Akademi Award,Padma Shri, Bharatiya Jnanpith Award, Padma Bhushan, and numerous national lifetime-achievementrecognitions. The Government of India formally conferred the Padma Bhushan in 2022 for Literature and Education, and in 2024 Literature Live! Mumbai honoured her with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Preeti Parikh is a poet and essayist with a past educational background in medicine and a recent MFA from The Rainier Writing Workshop. A Kundiman Fellow and National Poetry Series finalist, she is the recipient of a 2023 Sustainable Arts Foundation grant award and a 2024 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence award. Preeti's poems appear in Beloit Poetry Journal, The Cincinnati Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, The Margins, Zocalo Public Square, and other literary journals. Her writing is anthologized in Nonwhite and Woman: 131 Micro Essays on Being in the World, the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English (2021 and 2022 editions), and The Last Milkweed. Preeti has been a Millay Arts Artist-in-Residence and an AWP Writer to Writer Program mentee and has received staff scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her work has been performed in a poetry-ballet collaboration and exhibited at the 2025 Creative Asian Society Art Exhibition. Born and raised in India, she now lives with her family in Ohio. Preeti Parikh's collection of poems, BLUE SELVAGE, named by Debutiful as one of The Debut Poetry Collections You Need to Read in 2026, will be out in November from Tupelo Press.

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Blue Selvage is a formally daring, deeply embodied meditation that weaves lyric, essay, documentary fragments, and historical reckoning into an exploration of skin, cloth, color, and form as living archives. Here, passion for indigo, a medical-science-informed perspective, fascination with the materiality of cloth and skin, and a journeying towards reclamation interlace with feminist inquiries and cultural examination to conceptualize the poems' multivalent inhabitances. Expansive in its rhetorical modes and landscapes, Blue Selvage is unified by a remarkable singularity of voice and vision through which Parikh skillfully invokes form as metaphor, performance, dramatization, and content. What emerges is a capacious field of attention, where intimacy and history press against one another, and where writing itself becomes an act of unstitching and re-making—an ethical, sensuous practice of staying with what the body remembers and what culture would prefer to erase.

BOOK REVIEWS
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR BLUE SELVAGE (TUPELO PRESS, NOV 2026)

Poetry as the work of embodiment, of transformation—this principle manifests as a gorgeous new expression in Blue Selvage. But as Preeti Parikh shows, the arc towards self-realization is also about the tensions between raveling and unraveling, stitching and unstitching, text and lacuna. Delving into the intimacy of memory and the violence of history, Parikh understands that “opacity and translucence” are both necessary to deep testimony. Bold in its forms and defiant in its truths, Blue Selvage is a radiant debut. — Rick Barot, Author of Moving the Bones

The artistry of Preeti Parikh’s debut collection, Blue Selvage, is one of daring precision—an embroidery of vivid, textured language that explores the instability of boundaries and the implications of integument: cover and exposure, clothing and skin, diaspora and the “dreamcloth” of identity. This is the poetics we need today, one that deeply enacts the decentralization of power by meditating on edges both frayed and selvaged and traversing the thresholds of body, language, culture, and memory. Parikh’s multi-lingual, multi-modal tapestry is beautiful, articulate, and brave. A refreshing and liberating voice! — Jennifer Elise Foerster, Author of The Maybe Bird

Blue Selvage is an inventive palimpsest of South Asian history and autobiography, unspooling the female body and the weight of its inheritance. Braiding memory with etymology, and medical terminology with the cadences of Hindi and Gujarati, Parikh navigates multiple geographies—clinical, domestic, diasporic. Here, fabric both covers and bares. The body is archive and anatomy, born a ‘milky clump’ of cotton and marked by indigo's colonial violence. This is fierce work on the gaze and its exposures, a reckoning with touch, shame, and desire that stains the reader's mind blue and selvages the self. A stunning debut by a luminous new voice. — Shikha Malaviya, Author of Anandibai Joshee, A Life in Poems

Blue Selvage is a chronicle of dichotomies, both difficult and joyful. Preeti Parikh’s debut collection of poems is exhilarating. Here we find a convincingly modern mind — one formed in girlhood on one continent and evolving into an empowered woman and poet on another. The tensions of family and culture explored in this book are numerous: what’s lost and what’s found; what’s private and what’s a violation; what’s a mask and what’s a face; what is broken and what is healed. The concentrated, formally varied poems weave shame and empowerment, the buried and the unearthed, the forgotten and the remembered. When Parikh writes, “let the fabric breathe,” she is conveying complexities of feeling, fluency, and morality that any reader will recognize as clarity and grace. — David Biespiel, Author of Beautiful Is the World

KARAN MAHAJAN is the author of The Association of Small Bombs, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award, and named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. His debut novel, Family Planning, was a finalist for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. He has been selected as one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists, and his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The New York Review of Books, and other venues. He is an associate professor in Literary Arts at Brown University.

Book
In a sprawling complex in Delhi, the sons and daughters of SP Chopra, one of India's political architects, live together vying for influence in a family shaped by the great man's legacy. By the late 1970s, his descendants are scrambling to define their own futures in a still-young nation on the brink of transformation.

Sachin Chopra leaves for America, with his bride Gita following not long after, as the newlyweds are eager to forge their own lives beyond the pressures of the family compound. Yet Delhi remains an inescapable force, one that keeps pulling them back, even as Gita is menaced by Sachin’s predatory uncle, Laxman. A man of restless ambition, Laxman ascends through the ranks of a rising Hindu nationalist movement, caught between his political aspirations and his personal transgressions. Meanwhile, Vibha, his sister, tries to keep the peace and the reputation of the family intact even as she wrestles with her own exile.

As India erupts in violence and long-buried secrets come to light, the embattled Chopras must reckon with the cost of power, the weight of tradition, and the shifting nature of love and allegiance. Equal parts brilliant family saga and piercing political drama, The Complex is a virtuosic novel of revenge and redemption, ambition and undoing, loyalty and love, by one of the most lauded voices in contemporary fiction.

Devesh Kapur is Starr Foundation Professor of South Asia Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins. His earlier stints include the Madan Lal Sobti Chair for the Study of Contemporary India and Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania and the Frederick Danziger Associate Professor of Government at Harvard.

His research has focused on five broad areas that examine the political and institutional determinants of economic development: international financial institutions; political and economic consequences of migration; the political economy of India; governance and public institutions; and higher education. He has published more than 100 articles and book chapters and fourteen books including A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey (with Arvind Subramanian), The Other One Percent: Indians in America; Defying the Odds: The Rise of Dalit Entrepreneurs (Random House, 2014); Diaspora, Democracy and Development: The Impact of International Migration from India on India; Give Us Your Best and Brightest: The Global Hunt for Talent and Its Impact on the Developing World; The World Bank: Its First Half Century. He was the lead academic for the World Development 2025: Standards for Development. He also writes in leading media outlets including Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Project Syndicate, Time, Times of India, amongst others.

Arvind Subramanian is senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). Previously, he has taught at Brown, Ashoka and Harvard Universities. He served as the chief economic advisor to the government of India between 2014 and 2018. He currently also advises state governments in India on macro-economic, fiscal and sectoral issues. Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the world's top 100 global thinkers in 2011. His latest book (co-authored with Devesh Kapur), A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey, was a Financial Times book of the year.

As chief economic adviser, his annual Economic Survey of India, became a widely read document on Indian economic policy and development. The 2018 Survey had 20 million views from over 190 countries in its first year of publication. He was closely involved in the design of the nation-wide Goods and Services Tax (GST) and several other policy initiatives. His reflections on his tenure were published as “Of Counsel: The Challenges of the Jaitley-Modi Economy.” His critically acclaimed book, Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China's Economic Dominance sold over 130,000 copies and was translated into 4 languages. 

Book Reviews
An audacious new book about a “precocious” country…”A Sixth of Humanity” is not short, spanning over 600 pages. But plenty of books about America require as many pages to cover a quarter as many people. The author’' accomplishment is all the more remarkable given India’s forbidding complexity. - The Economist

In this ambitious, deeply researched book, coming in at over 750 pages, authors ... provide a definitive guide to the nation’s 75-year development odyssey. In illuminating the structural tensions that define India’s past and present Kapur and Subramanian provide one of the most comprehensive analyses of the country’s development journey to date, with a timely corrective to the caricatures that so often shape outsiders’ views of India’s rise. - Financial Times

A magisterial book - Montek Singh Ahluwahlia, former Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission

Prospective authors who write on India should worry that there is nothing more left to write on because this book has covered almost everything about India and that needs to be said about India. They have done an amazing job in helping us understand India over the last 75 years, providing us answers to questions we normally ask and even provoke questions we didn’t think we could ask. - Duvvuri Subbarao, former Governor, Reserve Bank of India

This book is a truly veritable intellectual achievement, illuminating and educative. It will replace Dréze and Sen as the last great text on Indian development. - Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science, Brown University

This is really an amazing, monumental piece of work. - Rakesh Mohan, former Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India and Chief Economic Adviser, Government of India

Rakesh Kaul, an Indian Institute of Technology gold medallist, migrated to the US in 1972. He moved to the US to pursue his Master’s program in solar cells at Brown University. He was a Leon Carroll Marshall Fellow at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He helped found the first Chair of India Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Mattoo Center for India Studies at the State University of New York. He is the author of the bestseller The Last Queen of Kashmir, published by HarperCollins and translated into Hindi, and the critically acclaimed Dawn The Warrior Princess of Kashmir, published by Penguin. His short story, The Last Delivery, was shortlisted for the prestigious Bridport Prize Short Story in 2025. Kaul has had a distinguished business career as a CEO and has held leadership positions at publicly traded US companies. His latest novel, WaterFire Day Zero, is published in India by Vitasta Publications and in the UK by Pippa Rann Books. He serves as Vice Chair of the Indo-American Arts Council in New York City and is an active columnist for leading media outlets www.RakeshKKaul.com

BOOK REVIEWS
“Kaul presents a gripping narrative and a convincing young protagonist… A lively and involving combination of fantasy and cli-fi.” - KIRKUS Reviews

“Jala is The Gaia Redemption …” - Emil Dispenza, Florida, award-winning creative

“WaterFire Day Zero felt like stepping into a river that carries both myth and urgency, moving me through time, across continents, and into the hidden depths of water itself. Rakesh Kaul’s language holds you the way water does: reflective one moment, torrential the next, always moving with a sense of inevitability and wonder. Jala is a heroine whose journey is physical, spiritual, and mythic all at once, a vessel for generations of grief, hope, and transformation. The narrative moves between intimate family moments, sweeping epic landscapes, and the luminous depths of the Water Metaverse, carrying the reader effortlessly across the threshold between the visible and the hidden.” - Kiran Merchant is a multi-hyphenate artist/entrepreneur, an architect turned filmmaker and theater director, based in New York City

“WaterFire Day Zero is a wonderfully original new novel by Rakesh Kaul with a story that works on many levels. Many readers will enjoy it as a fast-paced thriller set in the near future, but its deeper layers address the very nature of our worldly experience and knowledge. The story has epic dimensions, centred on humanity’s survival amid an impending climate catastrophe and the conflict between good and evil, and it deftly weaves mythic elements in which the past informs the present. The name of the book’s principal character simultaneously recalls two of the five elements of reality, namely water (jala) and fire (jwala), and this device of double meaning to communicate something deeper about experience is used frequently in the narrative. The book highlights the subtle idea that both stories and science operate in a liminal space: in the former, the protagonist undergoes metamorphosis; in the latter, knowledge is transformed. Jala, much like the Messenger Cloud of Kalidasa, travels across India in search of her own meaning in life. Water gives birth to fire, and Jala’s fate is intertwined with the fiery asuric-dual that she must vanquish. As a philosophical and mythic novel, it touches upon questions such as whether our surface truth is mere imagination and whether we are a simulation. The book will entertain and lead one to deeper questions about life’s meaning.” - Padma Shri Professor Subhash Kak, Oklahoma, Member of the Indian Prime Minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council 

“WaterFire Day Zero — a trailblazing storyteller delivers another page-turner. This pioneering ‘cli-fi’ (climate fiction) thriller, in typical Rakesh Kaul style, is an Indo-US crossover that confronts one of humanity’s greatest challenges — the future of water. Ruminating, both materially and metaphysically, on this vital, life-giving but increasingly fraught and scarce resource, Kaul provokes us into realising that the shape of water is also the shape of consciousness itself. In his two previous novels, ‘The Last Queen of Kashmir: Kota Rani’ (2016), a foray into historical fiction, and ‘Dawn: The Warrior Princess of Kashmir’ (2019), venturing into AI futuristics, Kaul broke new ground. He doesn’t disappoint in WaterFire Day Zero either. The heroine’s journey takes us from life to death to renewal in truly breathtaking, imaginative leaps. A new superhero, at once water-fire, emerges like a Devi armed with many splendid munitions to combat the water-devouring, asuric arch-villain. The story is archetypal, the wisdom ancient, but the telling is entirely new and original. In the end, WaterFire Day Zero remains a tale of courage and hope in a time of apocalyptic catastrophe, even despair.” - Professor Makarand R. Paranjape, Florida, Director of Education AHCP LLC & Sri Aurobindo Chair, Vedere University.

Popularly known as 'Jal Purush, Waterman of India', Dr. Rajendra Singh is a renowned river rejuvenator and environmentalist. Born on August 6, 1959 in Dola village, Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh, he is an Ayurveda graduate and a post graduate of Hindi literature. For his work, he has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees by the University of Agricultural Sciences in Dharwad Karnataka 2014, Purnima University Jaipur in 2016, and from APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University Lucknow in 2019. In the year 2022, Dr. Singh was awarded Honorary Doctorate in Hindi Literature from R. N. B. Global University, Bikaner and Honorary Doctorate in Social Work from Swami Vivekananda Global University, Jaipur. Honorary Doctorate of Science (DSc) from U.P. Rajarshi Tandon Open University, Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Honorary Doctorate in Science by Janardan Rai Nagar Rajasthan, Vidyapeeth University, Udaipur Rajasthan in the year 2023, Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy From Kaziranga University Koraikhowa, Jorhat, Assam in 2023.

Dr. Singh has been awarded several National & international accolades: Government of India Ministry of Environment and Forests Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar For 1994. Chiefly "Ramon Magsaysay Award" in 2001 for community leadership, "Jamnalal Bajaj Award" for use of science and technology for rural development, in 2005 and the Nobel Prize for water the Stockholm Water Award in 2015. The Guardian named him "in the list of the world's 50 people in 2008 who can save the planet Earth. He was also awarded the "Ahimsa" Award in 2018 from the House of Commons, United Kingdom, "Earth Repair" award in 2019 from US Seattle and the Prithvi Bhushan Award from New Delhi in 2019. Lifetime Achievement Award Given By Zee Digital in 2022. The Future Award – 2022 given by National Convention civil Engineers. In the year 2023, he was honored with 'Swamiram Humanity Award' by Himalayan Institute Hospital Trust for water conservation and social work. In February 2024, he was awarded the "Bharat Asmita Rashtriya Award" by MIT World Peace University, Pune for his unique work in the field of water conservation and river regeneration. In March & April 2024, He was awarded “Chirmule Award 2022” for water conservation, environment promotion and social work was awarded by Chirmule Charitable Trust and “Samajbhushan Award 2024” was awarded by Shri Dutt Shetkari sahakari sakhar karkhanana Ltd Shirol, Maharashtra. On October 28, 2024, at the Sawai Jaipur Awards 2024, "Mirza Raja Ram Singh" was awarded the first prize for excellence in maintaining ecological balance and improving the environment. Honored with Seva Ratna Award by Kisan Trust, Delhi in December 2024. FNA (Fellow National Science Academy, New Delhi Government of India).

Over the last 50 years of his life dedicated to society, he has provided solutions to issues of climate change, adaptation and eradication through the efforts of local communities, empowering them through water conservation and replenishing groundwater banks.

Dr Singh believes that the water problems are such that they cannot be solved by science or technology alone. What is required is community involvement, policy, leadership and use of local knowledge to arrive at local solutions. In the United Nations, the principle of 'water is climate and climate is water' is recognized by the success of local and 'small efforts' experiments.

Dr. Rajendra Singh is a hardworking and fully dedicated worker. With this simple, frugal, true and non-violent 'method' for the prosperity of humanity and nature, we are all actively following the path of Mahatma Gandhi.

He has pledged to make peace in the world through water. It can be done! May we all be together and have the moral strength to make this a reality!

Kenneth I. Chenault is the Chairman and a Managing Director of General Catalyst. Prior to joining General Catalyst, Ken was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of American Express Company, a position he held from 2001 to 2018. As a managing director of General Catalyst, he focuses on investing in fast-growing companies that have the potential to become large, fundamental institutions. He also provides invaluable guidance to portfolio companies, particularly to those with an eye towards global markets and responsible innovation, as they scale their teams and products. As chairman, Ken leverages his renowned leadership abilities and experience to continue to evolve General Catalyst into a formidable and enduring company. Ken is the author of Equal to the Task, his memoir, in which reflects on his personal journey, the mentors who shaped him, and his lifelong quest to realize his own potential and make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.

Previously, he joined American Express in 1981 as Director of Strategic Planning and served subsequently in a number of increasingly senior positions, including Vice Chairman and President and Chief Operating Officer, until his appointment as CEO. Under his leadership, American Express built one of the world’s largest customer loyalty programs – Membership Rewards – and earned global recognition as a leader in customer service. Upon Ken’s retirement from American Express, Warren Buffett, the company’s largest shareholder stated, “Ken's been the gold standard for corporate leadership and the benchmark that I measure others against.”

Ken is recognized as one of the business world’s experts on brands and brand management. He has been honored by multiple publications including Fortune Magazine, which named him as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders in its inaugural list in 2014 and, most recently, in 2021. TIME celebrated Ken together with Ken Frazier in the TIME100 Most Influential People of 2021 list for their corporate and social activism – specifically, for mobilizing hundreds of corporate leaders to advocate for equitable voting rights in the U.S., and for co-founding SkillsRight (formerly OneTen), a nonprofit organization of leading companies and CEOs committed to unlocking career opportunities for talent without four-year degrees.

Ken serves on the boards of Airbnb, Berkshire Hathaway, Bilt Rewards, Campus, Chief, and Guild Education. Ken is on the boards of numerous nonprofit organizations, including the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Concordance, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Human Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute Advisory Council at Stanford University, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Advisory Council for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, of which he formerly served as chair. He also serves on the board of trustees for NYU Langone Health, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and as co-chair of Concordance’s First Chance campaign to end the cycle of reincarceration.

Ken holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA in history from Bowdoin College. He has also received honorary degrees from several universities and awards from a wide variety of civic, social service, and community organizations.

He and his wife, Kathryn, live in New York City, and they have two sons.