Githa Hariharan has written novels, short fiction and essays over the last three and a half decades.

Her highly acclaimed work includes the novels The Thousand Faces of Night which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book in 1993, The Ghosts of Vasu Master, When Dreams Travel, Fugitive Histories and I Have Become the Tide, which has also been published in Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu translations. She is the author of the short story collection The Art of Dying and the essay collection Almost Home: Cities and Other Places.

She has also written children’s stories, and edited a collection of translated short fiction, A Southern Harvest, the essay collection From India to Palestine: Essays in Solidarity and co-edited Battling for India: A Citizen’s Reader.

Her most recent publication is the edited collection of conversations, This Too is India: Conversations on Diversity and Dissent.

Hariharan has, over the years, been a cultural commentator through her essays, lectures and activism. She was a founding trustee of the Indian Writers Forum from 2015 to 2022. In 1995, Hariharan challenged the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act as discriminatory against women. The case, Githa Hariharan and Another vs. Reserve Bank of India and Another, led to a landmark Supreme Court judgment in 1999 on guardianship.

“An outstanding writer.”   J.M. Coetzee
“An outstanding writer.”
 J.M. Coetzee

Githa Hariharan has written novels, short fiction and essays over the last three and a half decades.

Her highly acclaimed work includes the novels The Thousand Faces of Night which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book in 1993, The Ghosts of Vasu Master, When Dreams Travel, Fugitive Histories and I Have Become the Tide, which has also been published in Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu translations. She is the author of the short story collection The Art of Dying and the essay collection Almost Home: Cities and Other Places.

She has also written children’s stories, and edited a collection of translated short fiction, A Southern Harvest, the essay collection From India to Palestine: Essays in Solidarity and co-edited Battling for India: A Citizen’s Reader.

Her most recent publication is the edited collection of conversations, This Too is India: Conversations on Diversity and Dissent.

Hariharan has, over the years, been a cultural commentator through her essays, lectures and activism. She was a founding trustee of the Indian Writers Forum from 2015 to 2022. In 1995, Hariharan challenged the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act as discriminatory against women. The case, Githa Hariharan and Another vs. Reserve Bank of India and Another, led to a landmark Supreme Court judgment in 1999 on guardianship.

Essays & Stories

Remembering Scheherazade

I have always been fascinated by Scheherazade. Going by the evidence, this is a fascination shared by many others over the centuries.

The story is irresistible. There is a man who rules, as so many have done and as so many do.

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Learning another Ramayana in Bangkok

There is a sharp self-reflexive question at the end of some versions of the Ramayana: “How many Ramayanas have there been?”

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“All my work looks at power politics in some way or the other.”   Githa Hariharan

Books

Books

Essays & Stories

Githa recommends