THE PEN ALL-INDIA CENTRE

invites you to five events in January 2009

1/ Launch of Kalpish Ratna’s Uncertain Life and Sure Death: Medicine and Mahamaari in Maritime Mumbai

(in collaboration with the Maritime History Society)

Kalpana Swaminathan and Ishrat Syed are pediatric surgeons and writers who have collaborated for a number of years under the name of Kalpish Ratna, their domain embracing science as well as fiction. Their latest book is a fascinating study of the entangled colonial history of shipping and disease, a “chronicle of plagues in the islands we now call Mumbai”.

Date: 5 January 2009 (Monday)

Time: 6.15 pm

Venue: Theosophy Hall (3rd floor), 40 New Marine Lines

        Churchgate, Mumbai 400 020

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2/ Launch of Jeet Thayil’s Penguin anthology, 60 Indian Poets

(in collaboration with Penguin Books India & BLUE FROG)

Jeet Thayil is a noted poet and editor who has lived in Mumbai, Hong Kong, New Delhi and New York, and is currently based in Bangalore. His books of poems include Apocalypso, English and These Errors are Correct. His benchmark Penguin anthology spans nearly six decades of Indian poetry in English, bridging generations, continents and concerns.

Date: 6 January 2009 (Tuesday)

Time: 7 pm

Venue: BLUE FROG, D/2 Mathuradas Mills Compound, N M Joshi Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400 013

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3/ Murzban F. Shroff reads from his collection of stories, Breathless in Bombay

The much-praised Breathless in Bombay (Picador India, 2008) is Murzban F. Shroff’s first book. He has received two Pushcart nominations, and has won the John Gilgun Fiction Award. His stories have been published in prestigious journals internationally, including The Gettysburg Review, The Minnesota Review, and Southwest Review. Shroff lives and works in Mumbai.

Date: 8 January 2009 (Thursday)

Time: 6.15 pm

Venue: Theosophy Hall (3rd floor), 40 New Marine Lines

        Churchgate, Mumbai 400 020

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4/ PEN@Prithvi/ Photographer and filmmaker Rafeeq Ellias in conversation with poet and curator Ranjit Hoskote; and screening of Elias’ film on the Chinese in India, ‘The Legend of Fat Mama’

Rafeeq Ellias is an internationally known photographer. As a cinematographer, he has shot three documentaries: ‘The Nectar of Immortality’, a Channel Four film on the Kumbh Mela; ‘Slum Mumbai’, on Mumbai’s pavement-dwellers; and ‘Steps in Time’, on the Asiatic Society, Mumbai. ‘The Legend of Fat Mama’, made for BBC World, was Ellias’ first film as director and scriptwriter.

Date: 10 January 2009 (Saturday)

Time: 6.30 pm

Venue: Prithvi House, opp. Prithvi Theatre

        Juhu Church Road, Juhu, Mumbai 400 049

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5/ American poet and editor Ravi Shankar reads from his poetry, and engages in a discussion with poet and fiction writer Sampurna Chattarji; followed by readings from his Norton anthology, Language for a New Century

(in collaboration with the American Center)

Ravi Shankar is associate professor and poet in residence at Central Connecticut State University. He is founding editor of the international online journal of the arts, Drunken Boat (http://www.drunkenboat.com). He is the author of Instrumentality, a book of poems. With Tina Chang and Nathalie Handal, Shankar has co-edited the ambitious anthology, Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond (W W Norton, 2008).

Date: 12 January 2009 (Monday)

Time: 6.15 pm

Venue: Theosophy Hall (3rd floor), 40 New Marine Lines

        Churchgate, Mumbai 400 020