Nandini Bhattacharya
Fiction
College Station, TX
During my residency at Ragdale I will continue revising for publication my completed novel Homeland Blues, which takes a close look at the socially marginalized and Hindu fundamentalist politics in Narendra Modi’s India, and love, racism, xenophobic mentalities and other mysteries in Donald Trump’s America. My first novel Love’s Garden, forthcoming in October 2020, is a work of historical fiction and draws on major interconnected events of the two World Wars, the British Raj, the city of Calcutta (Kolkata), Indian Independence, the Partition of India, and the lives of Indian women caught up in that perfect storm of history. I have also published short stories in Storyscape Journal, Raising Mothers, Bangalore Review, Meat for Tea, and other venues.
I’ve held residencies and fellowships at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Workshop, the Sarah Lawrence Summer Writers’ Workshop, the Southampton Summer Writers’ Conference, The Voices of Our Nation Arts Writing Workshop, the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop in Paris, and the Vermont Studio Center. I am also accepted at the Centrum Artist Residency and the Craigardan Writer’s Residency (forthcoming). Also, in January 2021 I will begin attending the Warren Wilson College MFA program with a Holden Opportunity Grant from the Friends of Writers. My awards include first runner-up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction contest (2017-2018), a finalist for the Fourth River Folio Contest for Prose Prize (2018), long-listed for the Disquiet International Literary Prize (2019 and 2020), and a finalist for the Reynolds-Price International Women’s Literary Award (2019).