Shreya’s column for newspapers in the romantic month of February is about the deepest friendships

Pic: With her “all-time bestest friend”

“So what’s my criteria for bonafide buddies (ask yourself the same Q and you might find your life satisfactorily simplified)? I had an interesting exchange with writer Hanif Kureishi on social media more than a decade ago, when I was new to Facebook and he wasn’t (or was just inherently wiser). He insisted it was impossible to make genuine friends on social media and I scoffed at this, naively believing back then to have found whole hordes of them. After over a decade of middling and unfortunate experiences on platforms I can no longer be bothered to frequent, I recognise that the Buddha of Suburbia was spot on…”

Please click here to read the article in full.

Shreya’s 3rd book ‘Handle With Care’ (HarperCollins 2022) got lorryloads of royal and British media attention this month!

Please click on play to watch this 25-second HarperCollins video on the British media attention garnered by Shreya Sen-Handley’s third book ‘Handle With Care’ being presented to The Queen at Clarence House for Britain’s biggest literacy charity, the National Literacy Trust’s 30th anniversary. ‘Handle With Care’ (HarperCollins 2022) was selected from the many reader favourites nominated from across Britain for this special occasion.

Shreya in well-received Auroville Literature Festival’s media coverage

Image: At the Auroville Literature Festival in Puducherry, India, organised by Auroville and Government of India’s Ministry of Culture, plus other well-known Indian cultural and literary organisations, standing beside the festival banner featuring Shreya (1st column, 3rd row) alongside other celebrated/award-winning authors.

Here are two of the articles in the media in the run-up to the festival, in The Hindu, India’s most trusted newspaper https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/auroville-literature-festival-to-kick-start-with-a-diverse-line-up-of-indian-and-international-authors/article67196717.ece

And in the popular New Indian Express, which praises Shreya as a ‘strong author’ but unfortunately mangles her name https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/2023/aug/21/auroville-literature-festival-2023-exploring-the-worlds-within-words-2607151.html

Her works in the spotlight at this festival were the bestselling ‘Handle With Care’ (HarperCollins, 2022), longlisted in a select list of eight for Times of India’s AutHer Awards’ Best Nonfiction Book 2023, and Welsh National Opera’s epic production ‘Migrations’ which Shreya co-wrote, listed by both The Times and The Guardian in their best shows of 2022.

“Shreya Sen Handley is…the first South Asian woman to have written a libretto for an international opera,” states top Indian newspapers

The Welsh National Opera’s Migrations, a series of six stories exploring migration from different angles, is composed by Will Todd and opens on October 3, 2020. Shreya Sen-Handley (Memoirs of My Body, Strange) is one of the six writers, and the first South Asian woman to have written a libretto for an international opera. She focusses on the experiences of the first Indian doctors in Britain.

Other than Jeet Thayil and Amit Chaudhuri, not so many Indian/Asian writers of either sex have had an opportunity to write international opera. Continue reading

“Shreya Sen Handley becomes first Indian woman to write international opera” says top newspapers Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle

Indian writers writing operas for western productions — something that is not unheard of as there have been the likes of Amit Chaudhuri and Jeet Thayil who have done so. But now, most recently, author Shreya Sen-Handley became the first Indian and South Asian woman to write an opera for the Welsh National Opera…

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