Prof Vrinda Nabar

    Vrinda Nabar

    A former Chair of English at the University of Mumbai, Vrinda Nabar (b. 1948) studied at the universities of Mumbai and Oxford. She has been a Visiting Professor at Northwestern University (Illinois, USA) and at the Open University (Milton Keynes, UK). Her teaching and research interests have focused on postcolonial issues, Indian literature in English and in English translation, India and the Diaspora, and transnational feminisms. She has also made public presentations of her work at Northwestern University, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Loyola University (Chicago), West Chester University (PA, USA), the Open University (UK), the Sahitya Akademi, Xavier Institute of Communication, Mumbai, and various universities and colleges in India.

    In addition to academic papers and review articles, Vrinda Nabar’s published work includes: the academic bestseller Caste as WomanFamily Fables & Hidden Heresies: A Memoir of Mothers and More; The Bhagavadgita (Introduction and Translation); The Endless Female Hungers: A Study of Kamala Das; and Snake-Skin and Other Poems of Indira Sant (co-translated from the Marathi). She has co-edited Postcolonial Perspectives on the Raj and Its Literature, and Mapping Cultural Spaces: Postcolonial Indian Literature in English. She has also published translations from the poetry of Bakibaab Borkar, Sadanand Rege, Narayan Surve, Mangesh Padgaonkar and Jibanananda Das.

    Vrinda Nabar has freelanced extensively for Indian newspapers, radio and television since the 1970s. She wrote the monthly columns “Book Beat” (The Times of India), “First Person” (The Free Press Journal) and “View from My Window” (Harmony); a fortnightly column of arts and ideas for The Indian Post; and was Literary Editor (Fiction) for The Independent (Bombay). She conceptualised and compèred the monthly show “A Time For Books” for Bombay Doordarshan, and presented Marathi poets in translation as well as a series of literary magazines, “Writers of Tomorrow”, for All India Radio, Bombay. For a short while she also worked as a senior Consultant in Corporate Communications with the Tata Group. She lives in Mumbai, India.