A huge thanks goes to the team at Hardie Grant Books in Australia, and in particular to the book’s commissioning editor, Meelee Soorkia. This book would simply not have been birthed without Meelee’s unwavering commitment, professional mastery and unfailing good humour. From the initial brainstorming meetings in Hardie Grant’s Melbourne office, to the pulling together of the final details from different time zones, the process of working with Meelee was a joy. Thanks also to Hardie Grant Publishing Director, Fran Berry, for believing in this book.
Thank you to Manasi Subramaniam at HarperCollins India, who championed this anthology from the moment she heard about it at Sydney Writers Festival, when it was still in its infancy, and has maintained her enthusiasm throughout.
Thanks, too, to the Australia-India Council for a grant that will bring contributors from this anthology to Australia, so that their voices can be heard there and important live discussions can take place around the themes of the book.
And finally, to the mothers and grandmothers mentioned in all of these personal stories, those women who have taught their daughters to stand tall and become educated and to have a voice – yours is a precious legacy. May it be safely cherished and passed on.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Photo by Rio Helmi
Catriona Mitchell is a writer, editor and literary events programmer who fell in love with India initially through its literature when in her teens, and later via her first actual visit in 2007. In 2009, she received an Asialink Arts Residency with Teamwork Arts and Jaipur Literature Festival ( JLF) to conduct research into the work of twenty-four contemporary Indian authors. Since then, she has had an ongoing engagement with JLF (in her mind the most vivid event on the planet), which continues to fuel her deep interest in contemporary Indian literature and culture.
In 2012 Catriona co-created the Bookwallah train tour which took Indian authors, Australian authors and a portable, pop-up library of Australian books through South India by train for a month, and delivered live events at every stop along the way. Bookwallah won an Australian Federal Government arts award in 2013. Catriona directed, shot and edited a thirty-minute documentary of the Bookwallah tour, which screened in India and Australia.
Catriona has a Masters in Writing, and an M Phil in Creative Writing from Trinity College Dublin. She is a former Program Director of the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, Bali.
Passionate about telling compelling women’s stories, Catriona publishes conversations with remarkable women from around the world in an online magazine called Brava! brave women, bright ideas.
Published in 2016 by Hardie Grant Books
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers and copyright holders.
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
Individual essays © retained by the authors 2016
Collection © Hardie Grant Books 2016
A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the catalogue of the National Library of Australia at www.nla.gov.au
Walking Towards Ourselves: Indian Women Tell Their Stories
eISBN 978 1 74358 412 5
Cover design by Mark Campbell
pp. 57–56: Some sections of ‘Black’ by Rosalyn D’Mello were originally published in ‘Dark and Prejudice’, The Hindu Business Line, 2015
pp. 193–207: Some sections of ‘Cast Away’ by Tisca Chopra were originally published in Acting Smart, HarperCollins India, 2014
The publishers wish to acknowledge the Australia–India Council for their generous financial support.
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