K. Srilata

K. Srilata is an Indian poet, fiction writer, translator and academic based in Chennai.

Her first book of poems, Seablue Child, was published in 2000, followed by Arriving Shortly (2011).^[2][3] Her poem, In Santa Cruz, Diagnosed Home Sick won the First Prize in the All India Poetry Competition (organised by the British Council and The Poetry Society (India) in 1998.^[4] She has also been awarded the Unisun British Council Poetry Award (2007) and the Charles Wallace fellowship for a writing residency (2010).^[5] Her debut novel Table for Four was longlisted in 2009 for the Man Asian Literary Prize and released in 2011.^[6] She had earlier translated from Tamil to English two millennia worth of poetry Rapids of a Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry - along with Lakshmi Holmstrom, Subashree Krishnaswamy to much critical acclaim.^[7]

She is also a professor at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Madras where she researches and teaches Creative Writing, Fiction, Advanced English and Translation Studies.^[8] She is also a visiting faculty at the Chennai Mathematical Institute where she takes a course on Readings in Fiction.

Bibliography

Poetry

Collections

• Writing Octopus, New Delhi: Authorspress, 2013, ISBN 978-81-7273-785-6
• Arriving Shortly, Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2011, ISBN 978-93-5045-015-4
• Seablue Child, the Brown Critique, Kolkata, 2002.

Featured in

• The Dance of the Peacock: An Anthology of English Poetry from India,^[9] featuring 151 Indian English poets, edited by Vivekanand Jha and published by Hidden Brook Press,^[10] Canada.
• "For [Jeanne Mukuninwa]", "What father left us", and "Gomati",The Harper Collins Book of English Poetry (ed. [Sudeep Sen]), India, 2013, ISBN 978-93-5029-517-5
• Another Country: An Anthology of Post-Independence Poetry in English, (ed. [Arundhathi Subramaniam]), Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi, 2013, ISBN 978-81-260-4067-4
• "England, 1999", "A Somewhat Different Question", and "I Wear Wordlessness like a Tattered Dress", Caravan, February 2013,^[11]
• "Poem Walk", Kavya Bharati, 2011, No. 23
• "Drunken, Gasping Fish-lungs", "Mining", and "Slow Trot", Muse India, Issue 63^[12]
• "A Brief History of Writing", and "Gravity", Prairie Schooner 87, no. 2, 2013^[13]
• "Mazhai/Rain", Sonic Boom, Issue 3, 2014^[14]

Fiction

Novels

• Table for Four, New Delhi: Penguin, 2011, ISBN 978-0-14-306819-8

Stories

• "Cousin, Newly Acquired", Madras Mag, October 2014^[15]
• "These Things Happen if You Don't Watch it", Volume 28, Issue 3, Wasafiri, 2013^[16]
• "Game of Asylum Seekers", Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana (edited by Anil Menon and Vandana Singh), Zubaan, 2012, ISBN 978-93-81017-04-3
• "Sarasu", the Little Magazine, Vol. 5, Issue 4, 2004; First Impressions: Stories and Plays Shortlisted for the TLM New Writing Award, 2006 (the Little Magazine, New Delhi, 2006), Other People: The Sangam House Reader Vol. I, Sangam House 2011
• "State of Whiteness", The Shrinking Woman and Other Stories, Bangalore: Unisun, 2009
• "How Do I Love Thee?: Let Me Count the Ways", The Penguin Book of New Writing From India 2: First Proofs, New Delhi: Penguin, 2006

Translations

• The Rapids of a Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry (co-edited with Lakshmi Holmstrom and Subashree Krishnaswamy), New Delhi: Penguin India, 2009.
• Once There Was a Girl (translation of the Tamil novel Vattathul by R.Vatsala), Kolkata: Writers Workshop,2012,^[17] ISBN 978-93-5045-027-7

Academic/Editing

• The Other Half of the Coconut: Women Writing Self-Respect History, New Delhi: Zubaan, 2003, ISBN 978-81-86706-50-3
• Short Fiction from South India, (co-edited with Subashree Krishnaswamy), New Delhi: OUP, 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-569246-4

Online references

• Eighth National Poetry Competition 1998 - Award Winners
• K Srilata - An Interview
• Selected Poetry of K Srilata
• India Writes - Contemporary Indian Poetry
• Poems by K Srilata on Recours au Poeme
• "Not in the Picture" and "A Big Elephant in My Room"

References