K. Srilata

K. Srilata (also known as Srilata Krishnan) is an Indian poet, fiction writer, translator and academic based in Chennai. Her poem, In Santa Cruz, Diagnosed Home Sick won the First Prize in the All India Poetry Competition (organized by the British Council and The Poetry Society (India)) in 1998. She has also been awarded the Unisun British Council Poetry Award (2007) and the Charles Wallace writing residency at the University of Sterling (2010). Her debut novel Table for Four was long-listed in 2009 for the Man Asian Literary Prize and released in 2011.

Srilata’s most recent collection of poems Three Women in a Single-Room House was published by Sahitya Akademi in 2023. Her critically acclaimed book This Kind of Child: The ‘Disability’ Story, which brought together first-person accounts, interviews and short fiction on the disability experience, was published by Westland in 2022. Srilata’s poems have been widely anthologized and featured in collections such as The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets and The Penguin Book of Indian Poets.

A Fulbright pre-doctoral scholar at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Srilata has a masters and a PhD in Literature from the University of Hyderabad. Formerly a Professor of Literature at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Srilata took early retirement in order to focus more fully on her writing. She has been a participating writer at the Jaipur Literary Festival, the Bangalore Literary Festival, the Seoul International Writers Festival, the Sahitya Akademi’s International Literature Festival, the Hindu Lit for Life festival, the Hyderabad Literary Festival and the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival.

Career
Her first book of poems, Seablue Child, was published in 2000, followed by Arriving Shortly (2011). Other poetry collections are Writing Octopus (2013), Bookmarking the Oasis (2015) and The Unmistakable Presence of Absent Humans (2019). Srilata also translated from Tamil to English two millennia worth of poetry titled Rapids of a Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry - along with Lakshmi Holmstrom and Subashree Krishnaswamy. Her other work includes translations of R. Vatsala's Tamil novels Once there was a girl (Vattathul), The Scent of Happiness (Kannukkul Satru Payanithu), a co-translation along with Shobhana Kumar of the Tamil poet Salma’s work i, Salma (Red River), and a translation of women's writing from the Self-Respect Movement The Other Half of the Coconut: Women Writing Self-Respect History. Yoda Press has published an Indo-Irish collaborative poetry anthology All the Worlds Between that Srilata co-edited with Fiona Bolger. Srilata has co-edited Lifescapes: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers from Tamil Nadu (Women Unlimited), along with Swarnalatha Rangarajan.

Srilata has been a writer-in-residence at the University of Stirling, at Sangam House and at the Yeonhui Art Space in Seoul. Srilata co-curates the CMI Arts Initiative along with Madhavan Mukund and K.V. Subrahmanyam, apart from hosting a writing residency in partnership with Sangam House. Srilata is also part of the team that runs Yavanika Press, an e-publishing site specializing in poetry.

Srilata was previously a professor at IIT Madras where she taught Creative Writing, Fiction, Advanced English and Translation Studies. Srilata is adjunct professor at the Chennai Mathematical Institute.

Poetry Collections

 * Three Women in a Single-Room House. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi: 2023, ISBN 978-9355486264
 * The Unmistakable Presence of Absent Humans. Mumbai: Paperwall/Poetrywala, 2019, ISBN 978-9382749943
 * All the Worlds Between: A Collaborative Poetry Project Between India and Ireland. (Co-edited with Fiona Bolger). New Delhi: Yoda, 2017, ISBN 9789382579472
 * Bookmarking the Oasis. Mumbai: Paperwall/Poetrywala, 2015, ISBN 9789382749295
 * Writing Octopus. New Delhi: Authorspress, 2013, ISBN 978-81-7273-785-6
 * Arriving Shortly. Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2011, ISBN 978-93-5045-015-4
 * Seablue Child. Kolkata: The Brown Critique, 2002

Fiction

 * Table for Four. New Delhi: Penguin, 2011, ISBN 978-0-14-306819-8

Non-Fiction

 * This Kind of Child: The `Disability’ Story. New Delhi: Westland, 2022, ISBN 978-9395767521
 * Short Fiction from South India (co-edited with Subashree Krishnaswamy). New Delhi: OUP, 2008, ISBN 978-0195692464
 * Lifescapes: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers from Tamilnadu (co-edited with Swarnalatha Rangarajan). New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2019, ISBN 978-9385606199

Translations

 * The Rapids of a Great River: The Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry Penguin Book of Tamil Poetry (co-edited with Lakshmi Holmstrom and Subashree Krishnaswamy). New Delhi: Penguin India, 2009, ISBN 9780670082810
 * Once There Was a Girl (translation of the Tamil novel Vattathul by R.Vatsala). Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2012, ISBN 978-93-5045-027-7
 * The Scent of Happiness (co-translation with Kaamya Sharma of Kannukkul Satru Payanithu, a Tamil novel by R Vatsala). New Delhi: Ratna Sagar, 2021, ISBN 978-8194756095
 * Salma: Selected Poems (co-translation with Shobhana Kumar of the Tamil poet Salma’s work). New Delhi: Red River, 2023, ISBN 978-9392494710

Academic/Editing

 * The Other Half of the Coconut: Women Writing Self-Respect History. New Delhi: Zubaan, 2003, ISBN 978-81-86706-50-3
 * Short Fiction from South India, (co-edited with Subashree Krishnaswamy). New Delhi: OUP, 2008, ISBN 978-0-19-569246-4
 * Lifescapes: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers from Tamilnadu (co-edited with Swarnalatha Rangarajan). New Delhi: Women Unlimited, 2019, ISBN 978-9385606199

Featured in

 * The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets. Northumberland: BloodAxe, 2008, ISBN 9781852248017
 * The Harper Collins Book of English Poetry. New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2012, ISBN 978-9350290415
 * A Poem a Day (edited by Gulzar). New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2020, ISBN 978-9353575908
 * The Penguin Book of Indian Poets. New Delhi: Penguin, 2022, ISBN 9780670096862
 * The Dance of the Peacock: An Anthology of English Poetry from India (ed. Dr Vivekanand Jha). Canada: Hidden Brook Press, 2013, ISBN 978-1927725009
 * "For [Jeanne Mukuninwa]", "What father left us", and "Gomati",The Harper Collins Book of English Poetry (ed. Sudeep Sen). India, 2013, ISBN 978-93-5029-517-5
 * Another Country: An Anthology of Post-Independence Poetry in English, (ed. Arundhathi Subramaniam). New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2013, ISBN 978-81-260-4067-4
 * "England, 1999", "A Somewhat Different Question", and "I Wear Wordlessness like a Tattered Dress", Caravan, February 2013
 * "Poem Walk", Kavya Bharati, 2011, No. 23
 * "Drunken, Gasping Fish-lungs", "Mining", and "Slow Trot", Muse India, Issue 63
 * "A Brief History of Writing", and "Gravity", Prairie Schooner 87, no. 2, 2013
 * "Mazhai/Rain", Sonic Boom, Issue 3, 2014

Stories

 * "You Expert Woman, You", Guftugu, May 2017
 * "Mynah Hands, Flying Fingers", The Punch Magazine, April 2017
 * "Rainbow Loom Bracelet", Out of Print, September 2015
 * "Cousin, Newly Acquired", Madras Mag, October 2014
 * "These Things Happen if You Don't Watch it", Volume 28, Issue 3, Wasafiri, 2013
 * "Game of Asylum Seekers", Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana (edited by Anil Menon and Vandana Singh), Zubaan, 2012, ISBN 978-93-81017-04-3
 * "Sarasu", the Little Magazine, Vol. 5, Issue 4, 2004; First Impressions: Stories and Plays Shortlisted for the TLM New Writing Award, 2006 (the Little Magazine, New Delhi, 2006), Other People: The Sangam House Reader Vol. I, Sangam House 2011
 * "State of Whiteness", The Shrinking Woman and Other Stories, Bangalore: Unisun, 2009, ISBN 9788188234530
 * "How Do I Love Thee?: Let Me Count the Ways", The Penguin Book of New Writing From India 2: First Proofs, New Delhi: Penguin, 2006