Formal bio

 

 Deepa Agarwal was born in Almora, Uttarakhand. She did her M.A. in English from the University of Allahabad after which she taught English in S.P.M. College, New Delhi for some years. Currently, she writes fiction and poetry for both children and adults and translates from Hindi into English. She has over sixty books published in English and Hindi.

 

Deepa has written mystery and adventure novels, ghost stories, stories of everyday life, picture books and biographies, retold folk tales and myths, and compiled textbooks. Her work has been published by leading publishers like Penguin India, Scholastic India, Hachette India, HarperCollins India, Children’s Book Trust, National Book Trust, Rupa & Co., Frank Educational Aids and Ratnasagar Publishers.  She has won several awards in the Children’s Book Trust Competitions for Writers and five of her titles have been listed in the White Raven Catalogue of notable books brought out by the International Youth Library, Munich. Among other important honours, she has received the National Award for Children’s Literature for her picture book Ashok’s New Friends published by Children’s Book Trust, in 1992-93 and the first prize in The Asian Age short story competition for her story “Cradle Song” in 1995. Her story “Visitor’s Hour” published in Cicada a U.S.A. based magazine for young adults, was a runner up in the Magazine Merit awards of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, U.S.A.  Deepa’s historical fiction Caravan to Tibet was selected for the IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) Honour List 2008 as the best book from India and translated into Korean. Her books Journey to the Forbidden City and Kashmir! Kashmir! were listed on the Parag Honour List and Journey to the Forbidden City was short listed for the Neev Book Award.

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Her work has been translated into 16 Indian languages apart from Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Croatian. She has had readings and presentations at many countries like U.S.A., U.K., China, South Africa, Denmark and Sweden and participated in many international conferences. She has also participated in many

festivals like the Jaipur Literature Festival and the Times LitFest.

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Deepa Agarwal's poetry and short fiction has been published in journals like Indian Literature, Indian Horizons and The Little Magazine among others and featured in many anthologies. Both her short story collection If the Earth Should Move…You Cannot Have All the Answers and her poetry collection Forgotten Kaleidoscopes have received critical acclaim, as has her translation of Chandrakanta, Devakinandan Khatri’s famous Hindi classic.

  

Deepa also researches children’s literature and has contributed to journals like Bookbird, the journal of the IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) Indian Literature, Writer and Illustrator, The Book Review among others, and guest edited features on children’s literature and young adult literature for the well-known literary website www.museindia.com. The Austrian government and the Ministry of Culture, Government of India have awarded her fellowships to pursue her research in children’s literature.

 

Apart from this, Deepa is a resource person for Scholastic India, National Book Trust and Ratnasagar Publishers and has conducted a large number of workshops on creative writing and storytelling sessions in schools. 

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