Rakesh Khanna
Author • Publisher •
Rakesh Khanna grew up in Berkeley, California, of mixed Punjabi and Anglo-American heritage. He co-founded Blaft Publications in Chennai with his wife, Rashmi Ruth Devadasan, in 2008. The company publishes translations of Indian fiction, folklore, weird fiction, and graphic novels. Rakesh is the author of Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India and editor of Blaft's Tamil Pulp Fiction and forthcoming Gujarati Pulp Fiction anthologies. Sometimes he edits mathematics textbooks. He is interested in marine invertebrates, demonology, topological graph theory, and banging on things to see what they sound like.
Saturday 11 May
Words Woven in the Dark: Horror in Indian Writing
Panel Discussion
Ghosts, demons and monsters have always been a part of Indian stories. They represent our fears, taboos, insecurities, hidden desires and social inequalities. How has our relationship with these supernatural beings evolved? What role do they continue to play in our stories? This conversation will bring insights from writers who work with supernatural and horror elements to understand what skeletons lie in our collective closets, and whether we should befriend them.