Katha Prize Stories: 5

Ajit Thakor's stories and poems reflect the landscape, milieu and culture of southern Gujarat. A pioneer of the Parishkruti Movement which countered modernist trends in Gujarati literature, he edited the literary journals Vi. He has a PhD in Sanskrit poetics and has received the Hari Om Prize five times for his research papers.

C S Lakshmi is a prolific feminist writer who writes under the pseudonym, Ambai'. Her writings take up the cause of women emancipation and explores the themes of the female body and sexuality. She is a recipient of Narayanaswamy Aiyar Prize for her fiction. Many of her stories have been translated into English. The Library of Congress holds five of her writings in its collection.

Asha Bage is a Marathi novelist. She was awarded with the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2006 for her novel Bhoomi.

Dipti Ranjan Pattanaik is a Professor in the Department of English at Banaras Hindu University. His stories and essays in English and Oriya have been published in journals in India and abroad.

Harekrishna Deka joined the Indian Police Service in 1968. A poet, short story writer and critic, he is a prominent literary figure in Assam. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award (1987) for Aan Ejon, a collection of poems.

A writer of short stories, film scripts and poetry, Jayant Kaikini is regarded as one of the most significant voices in Kannada literature today. He worked as a chemist before becoming a full-time writer. Apart from Kannada, Jayant is fluent in Konkani (his mother tongue), Marathi, Hindi and English.

N Prabhakaran is an academic, teacher, novelist, poet and playwright in the Malayalam language.

Prasenjit Gupta is a graduate from IIM Calcutta. He turned from working with Management Information Systems to writing short fiction, and is a graduate from Iowa Writers' Workshop. As a student of comparative literature at the University of Iowa, he was a member of the editorial staff of 100 Words. His stories and translations have appeared in journals in India and abroad.

Shirish Dhoble was born in Indore and studied medicine and surgery in Bhopal. He has published a collection of verse titled Rait Hai Mera Naam.

Syed Muhammad Ashraf was born into a Sufi family in Uttar Pradesh. He was educated at Aligarh Muslim University. He is the Founder and National President of the AIUMB.

T Srivalli Radhika studied Electronics Engineering and worked as a private engineer in a private firm in Hyderabad.

Tarapada Roy authored nearly sixty books- poetry, humourous essays, short stories, novels, books for children, translations- and edited several journals of poetry.

Thomas Joseph was considered one of the most promising Malayalam writers when he began his literary career and he only stood up to the expectations. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 2013.

U R Anantha Murthy was a Telugu writer and critic, and one of the proponents of the Navya Movement. He was honored with the Jnanpith Award for the Kannada language in 1994, and the  Padma Bhushan Award in 1998. He was one of the finalists for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013. He also served as the Vice-Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University in Kerala during the late 1980s.

Usha K R's stories- some of them for children- have appeared in various newspapers and journals, and she has several novels to her credit.