“Namita Gokhale, is the author of twenty-one books and Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Letters) awardee for 2021. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Jaipur Literature Festival (with William Dalrymple). Her acclaimed debut novel, Paro: Dreams of Passion, was published in 1984. An edited anthology ‘Mystics and Sceptics - Searching Himalayan Masters’ will be published in January 2023. Recent works of fiction include The Blind Matriarch, which examines the Indian joint family during the pandemic, Betrayed By Hope, a play based on the life of the poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt, and Jaipur Journals, set against the backdrop of the Jaipur Literature Festival. The Odia edition of her Sahitya Akademi award-winning novel ‘Things To Leave Behind’ - rendered as ‘RaagPahadi’ by translator Chirashree Indrasingh, will be published in November 2022 by Dhauli Books. Gokhale has written extensively on myth and religion. She was awarded the First Centenary National Award for Literature by the Assam Sahitya Sabha in 2017 and has received recognition both for her writing and her commitment to multilingual Indian literature and cross-cultural literary dialogue.”