Janice Pariat

Janice Pariat Biography

Janice Pariat is a budding poet and writer from Assam who writes in English. She is the author of Boats on Land, which won the Crossword Book Award for Fiction and the Young Writers’ Award from the Sahitya Akademi in 2013. Apart from novels she also writes columns for dailies and magazines. Her second book - Seahorse was published in November 2014. Though born in Assam she was brought up in Meghalaya and she is the first writer from Meghalaya who won Sahitya Akademi award for a work in English. The Yellow Nib Modern English Poetry by Indians and Kavi Kala: The Visual Poetry Project are her poetry collections.

Janice was born in Jorhat, Assam. She was brought up in Shillong and several tea estates in Assam. Her schooling was done at different schools of north-east. She completed graduation in English Literature from St. Stephen's College, Delhi and moved to London, where she did Master’s in History of Art and/or Archaeology from SOAS, University of London. In 2010, she started an online literary journal Pyrta, where she served as editor also. Apart from it she wrote for several Indian and international magazines since then.

She published her debut collection of short stories - Boats on Land, in English which brought her international acclamation apart from Crossword Book Award for Fiction and the Young Writers’ Award from the Sahitya Akademi in 2013. It was also shortlisted for the 2013 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. Her first novel, Seahorse was published in 2014. This poet and fiction writer re-imagines the recent history of the Northeast where her physical and imaginary life belongs, and has a distinct way to publish her own works.  

Published: N/A

Updated: February 05, 2016