Writers discuss their own experiences of creating work that crosses cultures or involves representing different cultures, narratives, experiences, vocabularies or languages to one another: how do they set about and feel about doing this? What are the responses within publishing, and from readers? What is it like to have your work translated? What is lost, or even gained, in this process? 

 

Avni Doshi was born in New Jersey and lives in Dubai. She has a BA in art history from Barnard College in New York and a Master’s in History of Art from University College London. She was awarded the Tibor Jones South Asia Prize in 2013 and a Charles Pick Fellowship in 2014. Her writing has appeared in British Vogue, Granta and The Sunday Times. Her first novel, Burnt Sugar, was originally released in India under the title Girl in White Cotton, where it won the 2021 Sushila Devi Award and was longlisted for the 2019 Tata First Novel Prize. Upon publication in the UK, Burnt Sugar was shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. In 2021, it was longlisted for the Women’s Prize. Named a 2020 Book of the Year by the Guardian, Economist, Spectator and NPR, it is being published in 26 languages. Avni is currently working on her second book. 

 

 

Raman Mundair is an Indian-born, director, writer, artists, activist and playwright based in Shetland and Glasgow. She is not neurotypical and identifies as disabled, Queer and British Asian intersectional feminist. She is the award-winning author of poetry collections Lovers, Liars, Conjurors and Thieves and A Choreographer’s Cartography, and the play The Algebra of Freedom, as well as the editor of Incoming: Some Shetland Voices. Socially and politically observant, her writing plays with the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and class and challenges notions of British and colonial histories and identities. Focussing on the experiences, knowledges and life-worlds of people of colour and reframing them from a fresh perspective, Raman has published poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction and performed and exhibited her artwork around the word from Aberdeen to Zimbabwe. She was Mentor for Scottish Youth Theatre’s Stories 2020 project last year.

 

 

Preti Taneja is a writer and activist. Her novel WE THAT ARE YOUNG (Galley Beggar Press), which explores the dynamics of King Lear in in light of global capitalism in an Indian setting won the 2018 Desmond Elliott Prize and was listed for awards including the Folio Prize, Books Are My Bag Readers' Choice Award, the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize, the Republic of Consciousness Prize, and Europe’s premier award for a work of world literature, the Prix Jan Michalski. It was a book of the year in the Guardian, The Sunday Times, the Spectator, and Library Journal, and a top 10 Book of the Decade for India's The Hindu newspaper. It has been translated into seven languages and is published in the USA by AA Knopf. Preti teaches Creative Writing at Newcastle University. She is a Contributing Editor at The White Review, and at the independent press, And Other Stories. Her new book, AFTERMATH, on the language of trauma, terror, prison and abolition will be published in 2021 as part of the Undelivered Lecturers series from Transit Books. Photo courtesy of Rory O' Bryen