India at 75: Writing from the Subcontinent and the Future of Free expression

As the world’s largest democracy, India has been witnessing rapid shifts in recent years, from unprecedented growth to a widening distance from the pluralism that defined its founding in 1947. It has seen increasing violence towards minorities, and eroding freedom of expression for its journalists and authors. As the country marks its 75th anniversary of Independence, PEN America invited vital authorial voices to write short texts expressing what they felt about these changes, collected together into an historic anthology: India at 75. Contributors including Booker-winner Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard), Man International Booker-winner Geetanjali Shree (Tomb of Sand, Mai), Amitava Kumar (The Blue Book: A Writer’s Journal, A Time Outside This Time), Suketu Mehta (This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found), Zia Jaffrey (The Invisibles: A Tale of the Eunuchs of India) and moderator Raghu Karnad ( Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War) now join at PEN World Voices for a powerful conversation on writing from the subcontinent and the diaspora, and this pivotal moment in India’s history.

Yashica Dutt
Suketu Mehta
Kiran Desai
Zia Jaffrey
Raghu Karnad
Amitava Kumar