Nayantara Sahgal
NAYANTARA SAHGAL is the author of 9 novels, 7 non-fiction works, and wide-ranging literary and political commentary. Her latest work is a collection of short stories titled DAY OF RECKONING. She has received the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Sinclair Fiction Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. She has held Fellowships in the United States at the Bunting Institute, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the National Humanities Center. She has been Vice-President of the People's Union for Civil Liberties, in India, and has served as Chair (Eurasia) on the jury of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. She has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Leeds, and a Distinguished Alumna Award by Wellesley College. In 2014 she returned her Sahitya Akademi Award in protest against the suppression of freedom of speech and the right to dissent under India's present Hindu fundamentalist government.