Sharjah International Book Fair: Meet top Indian authors

Check out the authors appearing at the India pavilion, including Amish Tripathi.

The Indian writer Amitav Ghosh is appearing at the Sharjah book fair. Barbara Zanon / Getty Images

The India pavilion at this year’s Sharjah International Book Fair packs quite a literary punch, offering a rare chance to meet some of India’s leading writers and performers and talk to them about their work.

Discuss the deep philosophies behind the best-selling Shiva trilogy of novels with its author Amish Tripathi (see our interview on the facing page), be a part of the international launch of the blockbuster writer Chetan Bhagat's seventh book, meet the popular Malayalam actress Manju Warrier, and listen to the management guru Shiv Khera and the much-awarded littérateur Amitav Ghosh.

Warrier, who recently made a big-screen comeback with the hit film How Old Are You?, will meet fans on Thursday at 9pm. Known for portraying strong female protagonists, she released a Malayalam book called Sallapam last year, sharing her experiences on and off screen.

“An Evening with Authors Across India” on Friday, November 7 at 6pm will feature writers from diverse regions of India. They include Dr Aziz Hajini, Alankode Leela­krishnan, Vinod Joshi and K Sreenivasarao.

Ghosh is an anthropologist as well as an author. His books are popular worldwide and have been translated into many languages. The Calcutta Chromosome won him the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, and his Sea of Poppies was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. You can meet the author on November 13 at 8.30pm.

Bhagat needs no introduction, at least not to younger Indians. The author of six best-sellers, four of which have been made into Bollywood films, Bhagat was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. His seventh book, Half Girlfriend, will have its international launch at the book fair on November 14 at 8.30pm. Watch out for our exclusive interview with him, coming soon.

You can get some life coaching from the management guru and motivational speaker Khera on November 11 at 8.30pm. Khera has written 16 books, including the international bestseller You Can Win, which has sold more than 2.8 million copies in 16 ­languages.

Prolific writer and politician Shashi Tharoor returns to the fair next Sunday at 8.30pm to talk about his forthcoming book. An award-winning author of 14 books, he has also written hundreds of articles for publications such as The New York Times, Washington Post, Time and ­Newsweek.

Another interesting author to look out for is Rashmi Bansal, an Indian Institute of Management graduate and youth expert. She has written six best-selling books on entrepreneurs in India, including I Have a Dream on social entrepreneurs who use business principles to try to make the world a better place; Poor Little Rich Slum, on the economy of Mumbai's huge slum Dharavi; and Follow your Rainbow, about women entrepreneurs. You can meet her on November 14 at 5.30pm.

With an eye on the large Keralite expatriate community in the UAE, the India Pavilion will also host an evening of Malayalam poetry on Friday. It features the eminent poets K G Sankara Pillai, Kureepuzha Srekumar, V Madhusoodanan Nair, Prabha Varma and P P Ramachandran.

DC Books, which is coordinating the Indian pavilion, says leading Indian publishers will also be offering their best-selling titles at discounted prices. And DC promises there will be a book for everyone, no matter what language they speak or where their interests lie.