Karthika Naïr

French-Indian, poet-dance producer/curator, Karthika Naïr is the author of several books, including The Honey Hunter, illustrated by Joëlle Jolivet and published in English, French, German and Bangla. Until the Lions: Echoes from the Mahabharata, her reimagining of the Mahabharata in multiple voices, won the 2015 Tata Literature Live! Award for fiction and was shortlisted for the 2016 Atta Galatta Prize for Fiction. She was also the principal scriptwriter of the multiple-award-winning DESH (2011), choreographer Akram Khan’s dance solo, and its adaptation for young adult audiences, Chotto Desh (2015).

In Naïr’s résumé as a dance enabler, one finds mention of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Damien Jalet, Käfig/Mourad Merzouki, two Olivier award-winning productions (Babel(Words) and Puz/zle), Auditorium Musica per Roma, the Louvre, the Villette, the Shaolin Temple in Henan, misadventures with ninja swords and pachyderms, among others, many of which materialise in her poetry (though, hopefully, not in the retelling of the Mahabharata).

Photo by Mujib MK