Anjum Hasan is an Indian novelist, short story writer, poet, and editor.

Early life

Hasan was born in 1972 in

Shillong Shillong (, ) is a hill station and the capital of Meghalaya, a Indian state, state in northeastern India. It is the headquarters of the East Khasi Hills district. Shillong is the list of most populous cities in India, 330th most populous city ...

Meghalaya Meghalaya (; "the abode of clouds") is a states and union territories of India, state in northeast India. Its capital is Shillong. Meghalaya was formed on 21 January 1972 by carving out two districts from the Assam: the United Khasi Hills an ...

. She stated in an interview that she had a middle-class upbringing - "insulated, comfortable but not over-privileged". She graduated in philosophy from

North-Eastern Hill University North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) is a Central University, India, Central University established on 19 July 1973 by an Act of the Indian Parliament. The university is in the suburb of Shillong, the state capital of Meghalaya, India. The univ ...

in Shillong.

Career

Anjum Hasan's first book was a collection of poems ''Street on the Hill'', published by Sahitya Akademi in 2006. Her debut novel ''Lunatic in my Head'' (Zubaan-Penguin, 2007) was shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award 2007. Set in

in the early 1990s, it weaves together the stories of its three main characters, and has been described by Siddhartha Deb as 'haunting and lyrical'. Her second novel titled ''Neti, Neti'' ( Roli Books, 2009) was longlisted for the 2008

Man Asian Literary Prize The Man Asian Literary Prize was an annual literary award between 2007 and 2012, given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year. It is awarded to write ...

and shortlisted for The Hindu Best Fiction Award in 2010. It told the story of 25-year old Sophie Das, a dreamy character from Shillong, looking for fulfilment in Bangalore. The novel was described as painting "an empathetic portrait of the unusually liberated—and unexpectedly lost—middle-class youth of the brave new India." Her short-story collection, ''Difficult Pleasures'' (Penguin/Viking 2012), was shortlisted for The Hindu Literary Prize and the Crossword Book Award. ''Lunatic in my Head'', ''Neti, Neti'' (as ''Big Girl Now'') and ''Difficult Pleasures'' have all appeared in Australia from Brass Monkey Books. Her third novel ''The Cosmopolitans'' was published by Penguin Books India in 2015 and Brio Books Australia in 2016. It was described as “that rare thing: a novel of ideas” In 2018 she published the short story collection ''A Day in the Life''. It won the Valley of Words award 2019. In 2022, Hasan's latest novel, ''History's Angel'', was acquired by

Bloomsbury India Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. Bloomsbury's head office is located on Bedford Square in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a US publishing office located in ...

for publication. The novel was awarded the Mumbai Literature Live! Literary Award for fiction book of the year in November, 2024 and th
FICCI Book of the Year - Fiction in English, 2024

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hasan, Anjum Living people Novelists from Meghalaya English-language poets from India Poets from Meghalaya 21st-century Indian journalists 21st-century Indian short story writers Indian women novelists Indian women editors Indian editors Indian women short story writers 21st-century Indian novelists 21st-century Indian women writers Women writers from Meghalaya North-Eastern Hill University alumni 1972 births People associated with Shillong English-language writers from India

Early life

Career

See also

References