The fourth edition of Ananke’s flagship event, the Women in Literature Festival, will showcase a diverse set of distinguished speakers especially from across the Global South. This year, this notable roster proudly includes award winning author and thought leader, Kiran Manral.
Kiran Manral published her first book, The Reluctant Detective, in 2011. She has published a total of 15 books across genres since. Her books include romance and chick lit with Once Upon A Crush (2014), All Aboard (2015), Saving Maya (2017), comic mystery with The Kitty Party Murder (2020); horror with The Face at the Window (2016) and More Things in Heaven and Earth (2021), psychological thriller with Missing, Presumed Dead (2018), sci-fi with All Those Who Wander (2023) and nonfiction with Karmic Kids (2015), A Boy’s Guide to Growing Up (2016), True Love Stories (2017), 13 Steps to Bloody Good Parenting (2019), Raising Children with Hope and Wonder in Times of a Pandemic and Climate Change (2020), Rising-30 Women Who Changed India (2022) and Rising 2.0-20 More Women Who Changed India (2024).
Image by Keemiya Creatives
Her short stories have been published on Juggernaut, in magazines like Verve and Cosmopolitan, and have been part of anthologies like Chicken Soup for the Soul (Westland), Have a Safe Journey (Amaryllis, 2017), Boo (Penguin, 2017) and The Best Asian Speculative Fiction (Kitaab, 2018), City of Screams (Halfbaked Beans, 2019), The Hachette Book of Indian Detective Fiction (2024). Her articles and columns have appeared in the Times of India, Tehelka, DNA, Yowoto, Shethepeople, TheDailyO, Scroll, Buzzfeed, New Woman, Femina, Verve, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Conde Nast Traveller, DB Post, The Telegraph, The Asian Age, iDiva, People, Sakal Times and more. She is also a podcaster hosting Chasing Creativity and co-hosting Not Your Aunty, two popular podcasts available across all audio platforms. She was previously a journalist, working with the Dalal Street Journal Group, The Times of India, the India Today Group, a qualitative market researcher and a trendspotter and India lead with Gartner Iconoculture, USA. She has spoken at most of the major literature festivals in India, at educational institutions like IIM (A), IIT (Bhubaneshwar), IIT (Roorkee), MET Mumbai to name a few, and other events.
Kiran is also a TEDx speaker and was a mentor with Vital Voices Global Mentoring Walk. She was awarded the Women Achievers Award by Young Environmentalists Association in 2013. The Indian Council of UN Relations (ICUNR) supported by the Ministry for Women and Child Development, Government of India, awarded her the International Women’s Day Award 2018 for excellence in the field of writing. She was named as one of the Womennovator 1000 Women of Asia 2021. In 2022, she was named amongst the 75 Iconic Indian women in STEAM by Red Dot Foundation and Beyond Black, in collaboration with the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India, and the British High Commission, New Delhi.
“Delighted and honoured to be a part of the Ananke’s Women in Literature Festival. It is so very important to shine the spotlight a bit on women in literature from South Asia and the Ananke festival does just that,” commented Kiran.
The festival aims to initiate discussions and dialogue that give rise to positive narratives. The digital festival is a flagship event of Ananke’s Women in Literature Foundation.
The 2024 edition of Ananke’s Women in Literature Festival, beginning on April 23rd, 2024, will create a collaborative space for dialogue and thought-provoking conversations about how literature, art and other forms of creativity produced especially by women, as well as other vulnerable groups can be highlighted, promoted, and celebrated globally via digital documentation, dialogue, and more.
More exciting announcements coming soon.
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