Shubhangi Swarup
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Shubhangi Swarup (hindi - शुभांगी स्वरुप; IPA - ʃʊbʰɑ́ŋgiː svəruːp) is an Indian author, journalist and educator. She is best known for her novel '' Latitudes of Longing'', which was published in 2018 by
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the "Big Five (publishers), Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group USA, Hachette, Macmi ...
and was declared a bestseller soon after its release in India, and Sweden. Swarup has worked as a journalist since 2008, and has written for
Open Open or OPEN may refer to: Music * Open (band), Australian pop/rock band * The Open (band), English indie rock band * ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969 * ''Open'' (Gerd Dudek, Buschi Niebergall, and Edward Vesala album), 1979 * ''Open'' (Go ...
, The Mint and also worked briefly in Zanzibar in 2011. She was the Executive Editor for ElseVR channel, India's first
virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a Simulation, simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video gam ...
(VR) journalism platform co-created by filmmaker and producer
Anand Gandhi Anand Gandhi (born Anand Modi, 26 September 1980) is an Indian filmmaker, entrepreneur, media producer, innovator and systems researcher. He is also the founder/CEO of the Mumbai-based new media studio and systems think tank Memesys Culture Lab. ...
. In this capacity, she directed and wrote ''When Borders Move'', a documentary about
Hunderman Hunderman or Hundarmaan or Hundurmaan is one of the northernmost hamlets in India and is situated in the Kargil district of Ladakh. Located on the banks of the Suru River 10 km from Kargil, it is a hamlet under Shilikchey village of Karg ...
, a village in Kargil that once belonged to Pakistan, was shortly in no man’s land, and now belongs to India. As part of the Dekeyser and Friend’s Dance Project, Swarup was part of
Fire of Anatolia The Fire of Anatolia or Anadolu Ateşi is a Turkish dance group consisting of 120 dancers, several choreographers and other technical staff. The group has performed in more than 85 countries from the United States to China and Japan, in front of ...
, a Turkish dance group consisting of 120 dancers, several choreographers and other technical staff. Additionally, she has volunteered as a teacher for street children and low income groups, and co-founded the community group, Hamara Footpath, a Mumbai-based NGO dedicated to the educational needs of children who live on Mumbai’s streets. Swarup was born in
Nashik Nashik, formerly Nasik, is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra situated on the banks of the river Godavari, about northeast of the state capital Mumbai. Nashik is one of the Hindu pilgrimage sites of the Kumbh ...
to Sunanda Swarup and Govind Swarup in 1982. She holds a Masters of Sciences degree in Violence, Conflict and Development from
SOAS University of London The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury area ...
.


Notable works


''Latitudes of Longing'' (2018)

Swarup began work on her first book in 2011. In an interview published in
The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...
, she mentioned that it took her seven years to write the novel, and that her training as a journalist taught her ‘the value of deadlines, and sticking to them in the face of uncertainty.’. '' Latitudes of Longing'' is among the first Indian novels to engage with nature as a living, heaving entity. A tectonically active fault-line running through the Indian subcontinent holds all the stories together, in lieu of a plot. Winner of the Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature, the jury observed that the novel has invented a genre in itself: the fiction of nature. Critically and commercially successful, the novel is in the process of being translated in 17 different languages. It was selected by the GOOP book club and Oprah Daily in 2020, and its Taiwanese translation was selected by the Eslite chain of bookstores, Taipei as their November book of the month.


''Shikaar'' (2019)

''Shikaar'' is a Hindi play conceptualized and co-written by Swarup in 2019. She wrote the story, and the play was produced by Patchworks Ensemble. Set among a group of chudails, the story explores the threat independent women pose to fascism. Shikaar received both popular and critical acclaim.


Awards

Swarup was awarded the Charles Pick Fellowship for creative writing at the University of East Anglia, and the South Asia Laadli Media & Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity twice for her articles - "The Many Perceptions of Rape", 2009 and "Stealth Revolution", 2012. For ''Latitudes of Longing'', she received the following awards and nominations - * the 6th Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature, 2022 * won the Sushila Devi Literature Award for Best Book of Fiction Written By A Woman, 2020 * longlisted for
International Dublin Literary Award The International Dublin Literary Award (), established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. It promotes excellence in world literature and is solely ...
, 2020 * longlisted for
DSC Prize for South Asian Literature The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is an international literary prize awarded annually to writers of any ethnicity or nationality writing about South AsiaNote: South Asia for the purposes of the prize is defined as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka ...
, 2019 * won the Tata Literature Live! First Book Award - Debut Fiction, 2018 * shortlisted for the inaugural JCB Prize for Literature, 2018


Influences

Discussing her literary influences in an interview with Prakruti Maniar, Swarup cited
Naguib Mahfouz Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha (, ; 11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described him as a writer "who, through wo ...
and A.K. Ramanujan, specifically his short story collection ''
A Flowering Tree ''A Flowering Tree'' is an opera in two acts composed by John Adams with a libretto by Adams and Peter Sellars, and commissioned by the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna, the San Francisco Symphony, the Barbican Centre in London, the Lincoln Cen ...
'' for narrative style, as well as
Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been best-sellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for hi ...
,
Gabriel García Márquez Gabriel José García Márquez (; 6 March 1927 – 17 April 2014) was a Colombian writer and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo () or Gabito () throughout Latin America. Considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th centur ...
and
Maria Dermoût Maria Dermoût (15 June 1888 – 27 June 1962) was an Indo-European novelist, considered one of the greats of Dutch literature and as such an important proponent of Dutch Indies literature. In December 1958 ''Time'' magazine praised the ...
's ''
The Ten Thousand Things ''The Ten Thousand Things'' (original Dutch: ''De Tienduizend Dingen'', 1955) is a novel by the Indo-European novelist and writer Maria Dermoût. The story is a rich tapestry of family life against the exotic, tropical background of the Molucca I ...
'', and other Japanese, Spanish and African literature. Beyond literature, Swarup also credited filmmaker
Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, and manga artist. He co-founded Studio Ghibli and serves as honorary chairman. Throughout his career, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Anime, Japanese ani ...
as a strong influence.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swarup, Shubhangi 1982 births Living people Indian women novelists Indian women journalists