Menka Shivdasani, a Mumbai-based poet, editor and translator, is the author of five poetry collections. Her first book of poems in 1990, Nirvana at Ten Rupees, was published by Adil Jussawalla and described by Bruce King as "one of the best first books of poetry to appear during the 1990s." (Modern Indian Poetry in English, Revised Edition, OUP, 2001). She subsequently published Stet (2001), Safe House (2015) and Frazil (1990-2017). Her most recent work, The Seven Queens, a retelling of Sindhi folktales in English verse, was published in 2024.Menka has co-translated Freedom and Fissures, an anthology of Sindhi Partition poetry (Sahitya Akademi, 1998), and edited If the Roof Leaks, Let it Leak, an anthology of women's writing for Sound and Picture Archives of Research on Women (2014).A widely published poet, Menka's work has been included in the Second Year Bachelor of Arts textbook of the University of Mumbai. She has also worked extensively to promote Sindhi literature and has collaborated with the senior Sindhi poet Mohan Gehani on three of his poetry collections in English translation. A poem by her, based on a Sindhi folktale, has been made into a short film by noted filmmaker Susheel Gajwani. Menka's awards include the Ethos Literary Award (2019) and the inaugural WE Eunice de Souza Award (2020). She was a finalist for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize in 2019. As a literary curator, Menka co-founded Poetry Circle in Bombay in 1986, co-founded and curated the Culture Beat activities of the Mumbai Press Club for more than a decade, and has organized poetry festival... See more
Menka Shivdasani, a Mumbai-based poet, editor and translator, is the author of five poetry collections. Her first book of poems in 1990, Nirvana at Ten Rupees, was published by Adil Jussawalla and described by Bruce King as "one of the best first books of poetry to appear during the 1990s." (Modern Indian Poetry in English, Revised Edition, OUP, 2001). She subsequently published Stet (2001), Safe House (2015) and Frazil (1990-2017). Her most recent work, The Seven Queens, a retelling of Sindhi folktales in English verse, was published in 2024.Menka has co-translated Freedom and Fissures, an anthology of Sindhi Partition poetry (Sahitya Akademi, 1998), and edited If the Roof Leaks, Let it Leak, an anthology of women's writing for Sound and Picture Archives of Research on Women (2014).A widely published poet, Menka's work has been included in the Second Year Bachelor of Arts textbook of the University of Mumbai. She has also worked extensively to promote Sindhi literature and has collaborated with the senior Sindhi poet Mohan Gehani on three of his poetry collections in English translation. A poem by her, based on a Sindhi folktale, has been made into a short film by noted filmmaker Susheel Gajwani. Menka's awards include the Ethos Literary Award (2019) and the inaugural WE Eunice de Souza Award (2020). She was a finalist for the Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize in 2019. As a literary curator, Menka co-founded Poetry Circle in Bombay in 1986, co-founded and curated the Culture Beat activities of the Mumbai Press Club for more than a decade, and has organized poetry festivals for 100 Thousand Poets for Change since 2011. Menka is Co-Chair, Asia Pacific Writers and Translators (APWT). Her work as a journalist includes 18 books, co-authored/ edited with Raju Kane, three of which were released by the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
