Tishani Doshi was born in Madras to a Welsh mother and a Gujarati father, and is based in India, after periods living in America and England. Her first book of poems, Countries of the Body won the 2006 Forward prize for best first collection. She was the winner of the 2006 All-India Poetry Competition, and a finalist in the Outlook-Picador Non-fiction competition in 2005. Her first novel, The Pleasure Seekers, will be published by Bloomsbury in 2009. Currently underway is a second volume of poetry and a biography of the …

Nikita Lalwani, author of Gifted, and winner of The Desmond Elliot Prize is my last and final interview of the weekend. I’m looking forward to it, naturally. Lalwani is amiable and approachable without being intimidating. I like that about her, she is definitely a natural and appears confident without having any air of arrogance about air. We talk about practically everything, from winning the Desmond Elliot prize, to juggling motherhood with writing, to having mentors and great friends…
Lalwani’s protagonist, Rumi is a child genius. I am keen to find out …

Penguin is pleased to announce the launch of the third Penguin Decibel anthology of new writing.
In February 2008, Penguin Decibel launched a competition for true stories which highlight the complexities, challenges, and pleasures of having a mixed heritage. The Map Of Me is a collection of the winning stories, all by writers of a diverse culture, and includes stories of of being Irish and Muslim; half-English, half-Pakistani and many more.
The Map of Me is published by Penguin, and is out in paperback on November 27, 2008.

The Linen Press is a new, small publishing company based in Edinburgh has launched its first author.
Breeze From The River Manjeera by Hema Macherla was published on November 1st, 2008. The lavish launch took place in London at The Nehru Centre, on November 5, 2008.
Breeze from the River Manjeera follows the fortunes of a young Indian woman who arrives in the UK to find herself trapped in an abusive, arranged marriage. The delightful, irrepressible Neela escapes her appalling in-laws and violent husband, and starts a journey – which takes her …

Mohsin Hamid, Tahmima Anam, Preeta Samarasan and Kamila Shamsie, are some of the writers who took part in this year’s SAMA Writers Festival, held at The Sage Gateshead in Newcastle (10-12 October, 2008)

The long weekend included readings, book launches and events as writers across the UK, India, France and Pakistan joined to share their work and celebrate the unique contribution that South Asian writers have made to the literature world.
The festival, the first of its kind, organised by the Northern Writers Centre, and the first ever to be held in …

Firstly I have to ask, what made you throw the lovely Zaki into a river, and run away for good? For much of the novel I thought Zaki would be the one to bring everyone together – were you tempted to go down that road? Or did you always know the fate of his character?
I always knew what Zaki would do – he was a free spirit who had been trapped for too long in the superficial middle class respectability of his corner shop; firstly in order to care for …

1) In your quest for love did you ever think that it was going to be such an emotional rollercoaster?
Never could I have imagined it to be so. The depth of human emotion is amazing!
2) Did you write the book as you went along, or did you write it later?
In its entirety, the book was written over a period of just over 4 months. Some of the instances were vivid in my mind simply because they are unforgettable. Ultimately with each encounter, each experience, I grew as a human being; …

Could you give our readers a flavour of the story?
‘The Marriage Bureau For Rich People’ is set in Vizag, my home town in South India. It has two major stories intertwined in it – a retired couple, Mr and Mrs Ali, who have opened the marriage bureau and the young girl, Aruna, who joins them as an assistant.
Mr and Mrs Ali are worried about their son who is leading a protest against a government takeover of farmers’ lands. Things get so bad that Mr Ali refuses to talk to his …

I meet with Preeta Samarasan, it’s my first interview of the day and its obvious that I’m nervous but Preeta is so friendly she quickly puts me at ease. We talk about her book The Evening Is a Whole Day – and I apologise to her for not having read it yet! (Maybe I shouldn’t admit this…it’s tempting to say I really loved your book – but I resist!)
Preeta Samarasan has been described as a compelling debut novelist,
she is a determined author, and heavily focussed on her writing. She lives, …

I meet with Tahmima Anam minutes after she has given a reading – we have only ten minutes – so I quickly rush through the questions. I’m struck at how petite she is, there is an elegant poise about her. Without warning we are interrupted by a passer by. We both apologise, even though none of its our fault and then I begin the interview…
Anam spent two years in Bangladesh researching A Golden Age. I asked her about her time there and whether at any point she felt like a …