People & Principles

The Bombay Literary Magazine‘s mission is to promote writers through their fine work. We are also interested in nonfiction that looks at literature from a “writerly” perspective. We publish stories, poems, essays, reviews, visual narratives and graphic fiction.

Our people are mostly located in India, and hence our content has a certain South-Asian orientation. However, this is only an accident of geography. As our archives spanning 10 years and 57 issues and 300,000+ words will prove, we welcome writers from all over the world.

We love literature, but this love is not— at least we try to ensure it is not— a blind love. We like to mull over how something is written, and not get unbuttoned simply by what it is about, or why it was written, or who wrote it, or to which genre it belongs. Of course, we all know that style cannot be so neatly unzipped from content, yes, this we all know, of course, of course. Unpacking this “of course” is of great interest to us.

What does “Bombay” have to do with literature? Glad you asked this question. We could yammer endlessly about the spirit of Bombay, its Gully Boy ambitions, colonial hangovers, and how in a country obsessed with origins, it welcomes all, regardless of origin, and how the city is sone chandi ki dagariya tu dekh babua et cetera, et cetera. But basically, like all great literature, any great city is both universal and particular at the same time. Makes no sense? Good. We have something in common then.

It is an old truism in writing that a sufficiently long ramble eventually contradicts itself. We will reserve that delightful mode of self-discovery for a later conversation. Welcome to The Bombay Literary Magazine.

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Masthead

Benoit Mandelbrot, who gave us the theory of fractals, began his book with the remark: “Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles and… nor does lightning travel in a straight line.” Likewise, for organisations. Organisations are not triangles and pyramids. We believe in roles and responsibilities, not ranks and hierarchies. The layout below is organised around various teams, and within each team, roughly, the order in which people joined The Bombay Literary Magazine. 

Founder, Editor | Tanuj Solanki

Groups: Fiction, Translated Fiction

TANUJ SOLANKI writes fiction when he’s not busy at his job in a life insurance company. In 2019, he was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar for his short-story collection, Diwali in Muzaffarnagar. His latest novel, The Machine is Learning, was longlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature 2020. He lives in Gurugram and doesn’t mind it much.

Editor-in-Chief | Anil Menon

Groups: Fiction, Systems

ANIL MENON estimates he is about 50% of the way into his hero’s journey. He has the usual list of awards-almost-won, residencies lounged at, stories translated into Igbo, movies acted in, and other happy side-effects of the writing life. He is the author of Half Of What I Say (Bloomsbury, 2015), a collection of speculative short fiction, The Inconceivable Idea Of The Sun (Hachette, 2022) and the novel The Coincidence Plot (Simon & Schuster, 2023). He can be reached at: iam@anilmenon.com.

Poetry Team

Managing Editor | Kunjana Parashar

KUNJANA PARASHAR is a poet from Mumbai. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Northwest, Sixth Finch, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. Her manuscript They Gather Around Me, the Animals, selected by Diane Seuss, has won the 2024 Barbara Stevens Poetry Book Award. She has received the Toto Funds the Arts award and the Deepankar Khiwani Memorial Prize.

Editor | Yashasvi Vachhani

YASHASVI VACHHANI is a poet, editor, and educator. She facilitates creative writing and reading programmes for children across ages.

From 2017 to 2020, she curated the children’s literature section of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, and went on to curate the literature section of the festival in 2022 and 2023. She is currently the Programme Manager at Mcubed Library.

Her work has been featured in SWWIM Miami—where her poem Ghazal for My Thunder was selected as one of the top ten poems for their Sing the Body issue—Of Brave Hearts and Dry Tongues, and Singapore Unbound.

She is one of the founders of The Osmosis Poetry Prize, a prize for Indian poets, and the founder of Odd Yellow Workshops—a workshopping space dedicated to the joys of the language arts, where she conducts workshops for children and adults alike.

She can usually be found at the library down the street or with a cup of tea at her favourite café.

Editor | Vasvi Kejriwal

VASVI KEJRIWAL is a writer, editor and former lawyer. She runs Fresh Mint: an initiative that aims to deepen access to the history and craft of poetry. Her work has been shortlisted for the Troubadour International Prize, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her poems are forthcoming/appear in RattleNimrodShō Poetry Journal, Mekong ReviewSWWIM Every DayThe Bombay Literary MagazineThe Alipore PostYearbook of Indian Poetry in English and elsewhere. She is a mentor for young writers at Girls Write Now. She is also a Reader for Chestnut Review  and an Assistant Social Media Editor at Washington Square Review. Her writing has received funding from MVICW, and she is a MFA candidate at New York University.

Editor | Devanshi Khetarpal

DEVANSHI KHETARPAL is an MFA candidate in Fiction at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Inklette Magazine. Her work has been published in Indiana ReviewPleiadesThe Masters ReviewSuspectPublic BooksThe Bombay Literary Magazine, and Poetry at Sangam, among others. Her poem received an Honorable Mention for the 2024 Prufer Poetry Prize. Devanshi’s work has been supported by the Truman Capote and Sonny Mehta fellowships at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and the Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference. Devanshi holds a Master’s in Comparative Literature from New York University. She is from Bhopal, and divides her time between Iowa City and New York City. 

Editor | Amal Mathew

AMAL MATHEW presently writes and reads from New Delhi where he studies Literary Arts and Creative Writing at Ambedkar University Delhi. His creative works have appeared in the nether Quarterly, VAYAVYA, Muse India and The Tiger Moth Review among other places. He hails from Thrissur, Kerala.

Editor | Ashish Kumar Singh

ASHISH KUMAR SINGH (he/him) is a queer Indian poet whose work has appeared in The Bombay Literary MagazineFrontier PoetryGrain MagazineChestnut ReviewFourteen PoemsCutleaf JournalAtlanta Review and elsewhere. Currently, he lives in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

Readers (Poetry)

DEBMALYA BANDYOPADHYAY (he/him) is a writer and mathematician based in Birmingham, UK. He is in the 2025 cohort of the Brooklyn Poets Mentorship Program. He is the runner-up for the UK Coaches Poetry Slam 2025, was a finalist for Sweet Literary’s Poetry Prize, Sophon Lit’s Poetry Contest, and the Briefly Write Poetry Prize, and has been nominated for Best of the Net. His poems, translations, and essays have appeared in Chestnut Review, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Rust & Moth, Propel, and elsewhere. He is often in parks confabulating with local birds.

LAVANYA ARORA is an independent researcher and writer exploring biology, culture, and food through stories, poetry, and narrative-driven articles. They find solace in nature, cooking and eating well balanced meals, and Ghibli movies (not the AI trend people are calling Ghibli art). Their work has previously appeared in Conde Nast Traveller, enthucutlet, Galway and Belfast Pride Festivals, Third Space: Anthology of South Asian Poets, Usawa Literary Review, gulmohur quarterly, and elsewhere. They were a part of the Himalayan Emerging Writers Residency 2024. Other than being perpetually online at @lavaurora on Instagram, they divide their time between Uttarakhand and Bengaluru.

SANDIP BAIDYA is a poet originally from Tripura but now based in Delhi. He is an alumnus of the Summer Institute IWP program from the University of Iowa (2019), where he spent a wonderful summer learning the craft of poetry and fiction writing. His poems have been published in The Bombay Literary Magazine, Yearbook of Indian Poetry 2022, scroll.in, & Beyond the Panorama. He was shortlisted for the Deepankar Khiwani Memorial Prize.

Sandip loves art and reports that all the header sections of his work journal pages are filled with doodles.

SHREYASI TRIPATHI is a writer and community builder from Delhi. Her poems have appeared in literary magazines like Vayavya and Pashchyanti Magazine. She also contributed poems on the theme of love and revolution to a feminist poetry anthology by One Future Collective titled How to Share The World. She hosts poetreeees picnics every month in Delhi where people gather around poems and trees. When she is not writing, tending to her plants and pets, or gathering people around poems, she is a technology policy lawyer. You can find her at @poetreeees on Instagram. 

Fiction Team

Editor | Kinjal Sethia

KINJAL SETHIA is a writer based in Pune. Her work has been published in nether QuarterlyTahoma Literary ReviewThe Bangalore ReviewOut of Print, among other places.  She is the co-founder of The Osmosis Poetry Prize.

Editor | Jigar Brahmbhatt

JIGAR BRAHMBHATT, when not busy with his software development job, can be found thinking about stories. Everything that happens to him is fodder. So nothing in life is good or bad, but yet another opportunity for a workable story. He feels he has found his zen thus.

Editor | Venkataraghavan S.

VENKATARAGHAVAN S. is a writer and actor. His non-fiction book The Origin Story of India’s States was published by Penguin in 2021. His short fiction has appeared in The Iowa ReviewThe Bombay Literary Magazine and Pratham Books. He was awarded the 2023 Neev Fellowship for Children’s Book Creators; his middle grade novel-in-progress is set in the Madras Zoo during World War II. He wrote, directed, produced and performed in Brachio: The Story of a Lighthouse, a play for children based on principles of social justice and equity, which premiered in 2023 in Bengaluru. Brachio is also forthcoming from HarperCollins as a chapter book for children.

Editor | Uday Kanungo

UDAY KANUNGO (He/Him) is a short-story writer and a PhD Student at the English Department of Arizona State University. He hopes to remain in the first role forever, and that the second concludes in time. His research interests involve philosophy of aesthetics and sense-perception in literary works. He is also a translator from Hindi and Odia to English, and his non-fiction has appeared in various Indian publications such as The Hindu and Newslaundry. In 2022, he won the Toto Award for Creative Writing in English, and his fiction has been published in The Bombay Review and The Indian Quarterly.

Editor | Anjali Alappat

ANJALI ALAPPAT is a writer and editor who has worked in journalism, publishing, and content creation. She’s the author of two books, Discovering Dinosaurs and Mina Makes a Dash with Pratham Books. She loves exploring the intersections of art, culture, history, social dynamics, and science. She’s also addicted to coffee and Oxford commas, and will not be seeking treatment for either of these issues. She is also the host of Arcx, India’s first podcast that focuses solely on South Asian sci-fi, speculative fiction, and fantasy authors.

Editor | Dyuti Mishra

Dyuti Mishra

DYUTI MISHRA is a writer and translator based in Berlin. She is currently working on her first novel Side Effects. Her work has been featured in Scroll, The Hindu, India Today, Vogue, GQ, Femina and other publications. When she is not fighting for survival against the German winters, she enjoys reading fiction, watching trashy shows, vintage shopping on eBay and doing her cat’s bidding.

Translations Team

Managing Editor (Poetry) | Mani Rao

MANI RAO is the author of twelve collections of poetry, including So That You Know (HarperCollins, July 2025). Her books in translation from Sanskrit mediate between ancient India and today—the canonical Bhagavad Gita, the poetry and plays of Kalidasa, and Saundarya Lahari, the esoteric hymn to Shakti.

After studying literature in the early 80’s Madras, she earned her bread and preserve as an advertising and television professional for two decades in Mumbai, New Zealand and Hong Kong. A resetting of life-goals led her back to the world of learning– she then did an MFA from UNLV and a PhD in Religious Studies from Duke University. Researching mantra experience in tantric communities, she discovered new mantras and continuing revelations for Living Mantra: Mantra, Deities and Visionary Experience (Cham Springer, 2019). She lives in Bangalore with her parents and partner with whom she enjoys traveling off the beaten track.

Managing Editor (Fiction) | Jayasree Kalathil

JAYASREE KALATHIL spent decades as a researcher and activist in mental health and antiracism. She currently strives to live a writerly life in a village in an English forest, easily distracted by heather, birds, and fungi. She is the author of a children’s book, The Sackclothman. Her translations from Malayalam have won the JCB Prize for Literature (S. Hareesh’s Moustache), the Crossword Book Award for Translation (N. Prabhakaran’s Diary of a Malayali Madman), and the V. Abdulla Memorial Translation Award (Sheela Tomy’s Valli). Valli was also shortlisted for the American Literary Translators Association National Translation Award and received a jury commendation from Muse India-GSP Rao Translation Award. She is a board member of the South Asian Literature in Translation (SALT) project and a mentor on the ALTA mentorship programme.

Editor (Poetry) | Pathikrit

PATHIKRIT grew up in Kolkata. His work has appeared in Kweli, the Northwest Review, the Wire, the New York Times, and elsewhere. He was the 2023 First Book Resident at Tin House. He holds degrees in geology, biology, and human-computer interaction, and he is currently working toward an MFA in fiction at the New Writers Project in Austin, Texas. More at pathikrit.in.

Editor (Fiction) | Uma Shirodkar

UMA SHIRODKAR lives in Mumbai and translates primarily from Marathi into English. She was a 2022 South Asia Speaks Fellow and her translations have appeared in Guernica Magazine and Hakara Journal. When she’s not inhabiting multilingual worlds, she loves reading unhealthy amounts of horror and macabre fiction in English and Marathi, learning new languages, and listening to the same 1760 songs on loop (though not necessarily in that order). She writes and translates @lyrically_obscure on Instagram.

Visual Narratives Team

Managing Editor | Siddharth Dasgupta

SIDDHARTH DASGUPTA writes poetry and fiction from cities inflicted with an existential throb. His fourth book—A Moveable East (Red River)—arrived in 2021. Siddharth’s literature has appeared in journals around the world, while he has read in places like Lucknow, Galle, Istanbul, Mandalay, and Paris. The arts & culture being a constant part of his life, Siddharth also articulates stories for a smattering of publications. With a prior background in branding & advertising, his literature is often infused with visual conversations. He lives in the city of Poona.

In the following months, Siddharth will reshape the visual language of The Bombay Literary Magazine, while curating and cultivating arts-based literature and narratives for the journal. You’ll find the author on Instagram @citizen.bliss and https://citizenbliss.squarespace.com

Editor | Name

Bio

Systems Team

Code God (retd.) | Aditya Athalye

ADITYA ATHALYE is here to tell you that this site works because of other peoples’ black magic. He’s pinched a book of spells and is trying to keep it up. He thinks the Internet is held together by duct tape and a hodgepodge of shell scripts. Sometimes he writes code that works sometimes. He lives in his head everywhere. But if you do catch him somewhere in meatspace, and it’s after 4PM, and he’s drinking any more filter coffee, please do everyone this favour. Gently pry the cup away from his hands. He can’t handle any more filter coffee after 4PM. His blog is just like this bio; took him forever to type out, and hasn’t really gone anywhere.

Sys Deva | Sumit Shetty

SUMIT SHETTY, when he is not cooking, eating or thinking about either, can be found in his usual habitat of his over-tinkered work desk where he haunts spaces between design and code. He claims he likes to make stuff but mostly dabbles in them until someone says he’s good at it and gets his ass in line. From such experiments have emerged projects like Aetherwise (a web-dev agency) and Webisoda (a platform for Indian OTT content).

He also manages to write (poetry & fiction) whenever he’s trying hard to ignore pressing business matters and has pieces published in The Yearbook of Indian Poetry 2020-21The Bombay Literary MagazineThe Alipore PostUnlost JournalGulmohur Quarterly. He is an organiser with the Pune Writers’ Group, is working on a science-fiction novel, and also likes to play fast and loose with the term “working”

On Sabbatical

Managing Editor (Poetry) | Pervin Saket

PERVIN SAKET was a 2024 writer-in-residence at the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program. She was awarded the Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize 2021, and was the inaugural Fellow for the Vancouver Manuscript Intensive, 2021. She is the curator of Literature at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. Her books include the novel ‘Urmila’, the poetry collection ‘A Tinge of Turmeric’ and a series of 10 landmark biographies-in-verse for children, featuring Indian women in science and sports. The legends say she has been with TBLM since Zero BC, give or take a century.

Editor| Name

Bio.

Editors @ Large

SHIVANI MUTNEJA
2023 – : Fiction Editor

SHIVANI MUTNEJA found her way into print as a feisty feminist poet, but now she writes about ugly husbands, marital conundrums, and bizarre children. Her work has appeared in Nether MagazineJellyfish ReviewQueen Mob’s Tea HouseTwo Serious Ladies and decomp journal among others. Her blog on medium which began as a curation of philosophical dilemmas in the kitchen is now steadily transforming into a meditation on Rene Magritte’s clouds.

PRIYANKA SARKAR
2023 – : Translations (Fiction) Editor

PRIYANKA SARKAR is the translator of three novels and a few short stories from Hindi to English. She has also done some translation work from English to Hindi and Bangla to English. Her focus has been on translating women writers in Hindi into English. She has also written some short fiction and non-fiction.

She considers her life a series of happy coincidences, especially her entry into publishing in 2007 right after a Masters in Literature from DU and the beginnings of her life as a translator. She takes special delight in the irreverent and humorous and is always looking to read something that will blow her mind.

X-Crows

ARJUN RAJENDRAN
2019-2021: Poetry Editor

Arjun’s most recent work is the much-praised poetry collection One Man, Two Executions (Westland, 2022). He’s also the author of  three other poetry books: The Cosmonaut in Hergé’s Rocket (Paperwall, 2017), Your Baby Is Starving (Aainanagar/VAYAVYA 2017), and  Snake Wine (Zaporogue, 2014). He was the Charles Wallace Fellow in Writing at The University of Stirling, Scotland (2018). His poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, magazines and journals like SOFTBLOW, Eclectica, Poetry at Sangam, The Missing Slate, Asian Cha, and Berfrois.  In his tenure as poetry editor of TBLM (2017-2020),  he shepherded some seventy poets through the publication process.

SHYAM MADHAVAN SARADA
April 2022 — August 2022: Graphics Designer

Shyam is a writer, illustrator, art director, photographer and filmmaker. He began his professional illustrator’s career as the cartoonist for the erstwhile literary review magazine “Indian Review of Books” in 1995. He is a founder-partner at Funky Rainbow, a leading independent retailer of Indian children’s books.

SAMPURNA CHATTARJI
September 2022 — March 2023: Poetry Editor

Sampurna has published twenty books. These include the short story collection about Mumbai, Dirty Love (Penguin, 2013); and ten poetry titles, the most recent being Elsewhere Where Else (Poetrywala, 2018) and Space Gulliver: Chronicles of an Alien (HarperCollins, 2020). Her translation of Joy Goswami’s prose poems After Death Comes Water (HarperCollins, 2021) has been described as “a living voice, inventive and vivid as the English of Joyce”.

ISHANI CHATTERJI
September 2022- April 2023: Social Media Editor

Ishani is a content and social media consultant. She oscillates between copywriting for brands and writing for herself, the latter being the harder one. You can find her in the nooks and corners of bookstores and small cafes, usually curled up with a book about cities and people, and always with a steaming cup of black coffee. She watches theatre, loves essays and has a new found love for annotating everything she reads.

ASWIN VIJAYAN
November 2022 — January 2025: Poetry Editor

Aswin is an Assistant Professor at the Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College, Calicut and has an MA in Poetry from the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast. His poems have been published in the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in EnglishWitness: The Red River Book of Poetry of DissentThe Bombay Literary Magazine, and The Tangerine among others. He was awarded the Toto Award for Creative Writing in 2022.

Nikita

NIKITA RAKHRA
May 2023 — December 2023: Social Media Editor

Nikita reports she is starting work on her law degree. And that in her spare time, she “fangirls over tennis and F1 while also writing when I can”.

UTKARSH MANI TRIPATHI
June 2023 — December 2023: Social Media Editor

Utkarsh writes essays on popular culture. He is deeply concerned with the state of children’s television. He also draws and cartoons on occasion.

MANDAKINI PACHAURI
August 2023 — September 2024: Fiction/Translations (Poetry) Editor

I have always unconsciously read and written snippets and reveries in several languages, walking around or on public transport. Some of these I bring to digital record and paper. It’s surprising to see my words on mothers or the woods make sense to others and my name at the end.

Amulya

AMULYA B.
August 2023 — April 2025: Fiction/Translations (Poetry) Editor

AMULYA B is a Bengaluru-based multimedia journalist, writer and translator who – when not doomscrolling – works in both Kannada and English languages. She is the only person to have won both Kannada and English Toto Funds the Arts (TFA) for Creative Writing in the same year (2021). Despite the craving for stability, she thrives best in between spaces (Kannada-English, Creative Writing-Journalism, Rural-Urban).

Aditi Rao

ADITI RAO
October 2023 – December 2023: Poetry Editor

Aditi is a writer, teacher, and potter. She is the author of two full length books of poetry, The Fingers Remember (Yoda Press, 2014) and A Kind of Freedom Song (Yoda Press, 2019). Her work has received national and international recognition through several awards and fellowships, including the Akademie Schloss Solitude Fellowship, the Hedgebrook Residency, the Sangam House Writers’ Residency, the Srinivas Rayaprol Prize for Poetry, the TFA Creative Writing in English award, and the Muse India – Satish Verma Young Writer Award. Aditi has a Masters’ of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Sarah Lawrence College. She also makes functional and whimsical pots under the banner of “HappyMess Ceramics”.

ANANYA MEHTA
January 2024 — December 2024: Social Media (Design) Editor

Ananya is a student of English and Political Science at St. Joseph’s University in Bangalore, India. Her writing is inspired by city life, orange cats, flower markets, seasonal fruits and the women around her. She has been published on platforms such as Youth Ki Awaaz and The Blahcksheep. Her personal essay won the Mother Tongue Essay Contest conducted by the Department of English at St. Joseph’s University in April 2022. It has been published in the department’s online magazine, The Open Dosa.

AAKANKSHA AHUJA
May 2024 — April 2025: Reader (Poetry)

AAKANKSHA AHUJA (she/her) lives, loves, and lusts in Bangalore. Her work has appeared in HT’s MintPena Lit MagVerse of SilenceFemme Fridays and elsewhere. She writes @theemdasher on Instagram.

SONI SOMARAJAN
May 2024 — April 2025: Editor (Poetry)

SONI SOMARAJAN is a content consultant and copywriter by profession. His poetry has appeared in The Bombay Literary MagazineThe Four Quarters MagazineThe Bangalore ReviewMadras Courier, and The Alipore Post, and has been anthologised in the Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English 2020 & 2022Open Your Eyes: A Climate Anthology (2022); and Scent of Rain: Remembering Jayanta Mahapatra (2024). An alumnus of the University of Iowa IWP Advanced Poetry Seminar 2013, he has read poetry at the Hay Festival Thiruvananthapuram (2010), Bengaluru Poetry Festival (2022), and Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters (2024). Previously the Creative Director at The Quarantine Train, Soni Somarajan was also the Associate Editor (Poetry) at Yavanika Press. First Contact (Red River, 2020) is his debut book of poetry.

ZAINAB UMMER FAROOK
May 2024 — April 2025: Editor (Poetry)

ZAINAB UMMER FAROOK lives in Kozhikode. Her work has been featured in The Bombay Literary MagazineMuse India, and nether Quarterly, among others. She was a 2023 South Asia Speaks Fellow, and won the 2024 Toto Funds the Arts Award for Creative Writing in English.

Acknowledgements

♥ KALYAN KANKANALA:  Kalyan’s competent team of lawyers at BananaIP Counsels, India’s leading intellectual property legal consultants, crafted a significant part of the contract we ask our authors to sign.

♥ GEORGE “APPUPEN” MATHEN: We are indebted George for three things: (1) the gift of a graphic fiction piece (Issue 52), (2) sage advice on building a graphic fiction vertical, and (3) for spreading the word about TBLM within the graphic fiction community.

♥ The Kolam Collective
The Bombay Literary Magazine is supported by a grant from Kolam EdTech, LLP. This allows us to offer our writers an honorarium.


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