Inaugural Auroville Literature Festival has “some of the best international and Indian writers” participating, including Shreya Sen-Handley

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The inaugural Auroville Literature Festival, celebrating Indian freedom-fighter and philosopher Sri Aurobindo’s 150th birth anniversary, organised with the Government of India’s Ministry of Culture, has “some of the best international and Indian writers and poets” participating, including author and librettist Shreya Sen-Handley, who features on their festival poster, alongside Booker Prize winning and other accomplished company.

Her two sessions include conversations about her latest book, bestselling ‘Handle With Care’ (HarperCollins 2022), longlisted for Times of India’s AutHer Awards’ Best Nonfiction Book 2023, and the acclaimed opera she co-wrote for Welsh National National Opera, ‘Migrations’ (2022), listed by both The Times and The Guardian amongst their best shows of 2022, and a talk with award-winning Australian novelist Jennifer Down.

Shreya Sen-Handley’s travel memoir ‘Handle With Care’ (HarperCollins, 2022) longlisted with seven other stellar works for Times of India AutHer Awards’ Best Nonfiction Book 2023

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Shreya Sen-Handley’s Handle with Care is a blithe and zippy travelogue that chronicles her adventures around the globe. In tow, most of the time, is the ‘quirky clan’ comprising her British husband, their two children, and their dog.

Here are tales of the world beyond south Kolkata and Sherwood Forest – places they call home. From much-loved Indian locales like Rajasthan and Kerala to bustling international capitals like New York and Paris, from English idylls like Dorset and Haworth to the sleepy pleasures of Corfu – the journeys are described in vivid detail, seasoned with humour, and sprinkled with wise trip-tips. No matter how gruelling the trek, you weather the storms well, and while you’re about it, have tons of fun, food and epiphanies. Mishaps or not, one learns, there is always magic to find.

These are delightful stories that’ll take you places without having to move an inch!

Please read more about the book and its longlisting here and here

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

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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 →