Last week on Saturday, June 13th, we saluted  the brilliance of the venerable Words on Water Literary festival at the Boston Athenaeum by welcoming Indu Sundaresan and Prajwal Parajuly, who talked about their work, the literary atmosphere in which they work and their delights and concerns with Indian literature today.  SAAC Literary Director, Rachel Tanzer   was instrumental in organizing this event.

Indu Sundaresan is the author of six works of fiction. The first novel of her Taj trilogy, THE TWENTIETH WIFE, is currently airing as a 42 episode television series in India, and work has begun in adapting the second novel, THE FEAST OF ROSES. THE TWENTIETH WIFE won the 2003 Washington Stage Book Award, and Indu is the recipient of the 2008 Light of India Award for excellence in literature. Her work has been published/translated in 22 languages to date. Her latest novel, based on the 186 carat Kohinoor diamond, is THE MOUNTAIN OF LIGHT.

Prajwal Parajuly (b. 1984) is the son of an Indian father and a Nepalese mother. He made his literary debut with “The Gurkha’s Daughter,” a collection of short stories that was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize in the UK and longlisted for The Story Prize in the US. “Land Where I Flee,” his first novel, has just been published in America after receiving worldwide acclaim.Parajuly’s writings have appeared in The New York Times, Guardian, The New Statesman and on the BBC. He lives between London and New York.

“Looking ahead there is much to be done as we hope to grow the festival and reach out to arts, business going audiences across the regions. We certainly could not have achieved this without the support of individuals, foundations and corporate sponsors for staying the course and believing in the vision. We hope that the realtionships forged between Boston community and civic leaders with their South Asian  counterparts will be rewarding to both people for years to come. “ stated Rajat Bhatnagar, Director – Intergovernmental Relations of SAAC.

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