Category: News
Prantik Banerjee awarded first prize in the Wingword Poetry Competition, 2025
We are happy to share that Prantik Banerjee has won the first prize in the Wingword Poetry Competition, 2025, for his poem, “Stand Alone”, published in Crossing the Line (Writers Workshop, 2022). Banerjee’s first book of poems, A Postscript on Missing Keys, was also brought out by us. This should work as an incentive for you to order a copy of Crossing the Line!
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St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, starts annual Professor P. Lal Memorial Lecture
To commemorate Professor P. Lal’s contributions as a professor, the Department of English at St Xavier’s College, where he taught for over 40 years, has initiated a Professor P. Lal Memorial Lecture series to be held annually. The inaugural lecture will be delivered by Dr Pradip Bhattacharya on P. Lal’s birthday, 28 August, at the college.
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Daud Haider ~ 21 February 1952 – 26 April 2025
Born in the district of Pabna (then East Pakistan), Daud Haider completed his college education from Dhaka and Kolkata, graduating from Jadavpur University. He was actively involved in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 and started writing poems, plays and essays prolifically from his late teens and early twenties. He was the literary editor of Dainik Sambad in Dhaka and was forced to leave Bangladesh in 1974 after being imprisoned the year before for writing a poem that was perceived […]
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Sritama Sen’s ‘There Used to Be a Lake Here Once’ declared runner-up at Muse India Young Writer Awards 2024
We are happy to share that Sritama Sen’s There Used to Be a Lake Here Once has been adjudged runner-up in the Ambika Ananth Award for Poetry category of this year’s Muse India Young Writer Awards. The judges’ citation described their book as ‘at once exceptional, impactful, and rich in poetry’. Says Sritama: “I am immensely grateful for this recognition, as it provides greater visibility to independently published queer and trans literature in India. I think this nomination really gave me […]
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Pritish Nandy (15 January 1951 – 8 January 2025)
Writers Workshop remembers and celebrates Pritish Nandy as the 16-year-old poet who came to Professor P. Lal with his first manuscript of poetry, Of Gods and Olives (which we published in 1967). He wrote about his experience with P. Lal, who gave him the “confidence no one else was willing to offer” in his homage, “To Sir With Love“. Of Gods and Olives went on to become “A huge hit and was widely acclaimed” as Pritish Nandy described later in an interview. His […]
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Our Poets Mentioned in ‘Literature, Critique, and Empire Today’
Some of our books published recently have been featured in ‘Literature, Critique, and Empire Today’. Here is what the prestigious journal had to say: “Purabi Bhattacharya’s Even Birds Go Home brings together her experience of being an outsider in her birthplace, Shillong.” “Abdul Jamil Urfi, Professor at the University of Delhi, has brought out Shouting at the Dead. The poems reflect a gentle humour and wit that is endearing. The essay, “My Journey in Poetry Appreciation” (included in the […]
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William Radice (1951-2024)
Writers Workshop mourns the passing of William Radice (1951-2024), British poet, scholar and translator. He taught Bengali at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Radice translated celebrated Bengali works such as Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry and stories, and Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s The Poem of the Killing of Meghnad. He edited Myths and Legends of India, a collection of 112 of his own retellings, including selections from our publication, P. Lal’s transcreation of The Mahabharata of Vyasa. A dear friend, Dr Radice published four volumes of poetry with Writers Workshop: Selected Poems, 1970–81 (1987), Before and After (1995), This Theatre Royal (2004) and Beauty, Be My […]
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Keki N. Daruwalla (24 January 1937 – 26 September 2024)
We mourn the death of the acclaimed author, Keki N. Daruwalla, who passed away on 26 September at the age of 87. His debut poetry collection Under Orion was published by Writers Workshop in 1970, followed by Apparition in April in 1971, which brought him the Uttar Pradesh State Award in 1972. He went on to write many other books of poetry, short stories, novels and nonfiction prose. Daruwalla received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1984 for The Keeper of the Dead (1982). He returned this award in 2015 in protest after the death of writer […]
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‘The Square Root of a Sonnet’ at the Royal Institute of London
The Square Root of a Sonnet, written by Nilanjan Choudhury and published by Writers Workshop, was performed at the renowned Royal Institution of London on 19th and 20th July, 2024. It was produced by the Centre for Film & Drama, India and directed by Prakash Belawadi, under the patronage of the Murty Trust. “It has been a humbling, exhilarating and extraordinary experience to stage the play at the 200+ years old Royal Institution – in the same theatre where people […]
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