Hemachandran Karah in conversation with Professor K. Srilata
K. Srilata is a poet, fiction writer, translator and an academician based in Chennai. She is Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras. Her poems, 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. Her poetry collections include Seablue Child (2000), Arriving Shortly (2011), Writing Octopus (2013) and Bookmarking the Oasis (2015). Her debut novel Table for Four was long-listed in 2009 for the Man Asian Literary Prize. She also has several translations to her credit including R. Vatsala’s Tamil novel Once There Was a Girl (Vattathul). Srilata is also part of the team that runs Yavanika Press, an e-publishing site specializing in poetry.
Hemachandran Karah (HK): You are a teacher, researcher, writer, and translator, and we are privileged to have you at IIT. Today I would like to focus on your journey as a creative writer in this conversation, and I am sure other aspects of your scholarship will emanate from there.
K. Srilata (KS): Thank you, Hemachandran for giving me this space.
HK: Can you briefly talk about your growing up years and when you started writing?
