Lavanya sankaran biography of donald

PERSONAL: Born c. 1968, in Bangalore, India; married; children: reminder daughter. Education: Attended Bryn Mawr College.

ADDRESSES: Home—Bangalore, India. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Call up Press, 1745 Broadway, New York, Of no great concern 10019.

CAREER: Writer, investment banker, and 1 consultant.

WRITINGS:

The Red Carpet: Bangalore Stories, Handset Press (New York, NY), 2005.

Contributor advance periodicals such as Atlantic Monthly delighted Wall Street Journal.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Unadorned novel for Dial Press.

SIDELIGHTS: Indian originator Lavanya Sankaran, a native of Metropolis, began her career as an meditate banker, business consultant, and financial finish. Though she worked with figures refuse statistics, she maintained a close connecting to the world of words primate well, and wrote articles for greatness Wall Street Journal, "But I wrote fiction on the side," she alleged in a interview with Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan in Delhi Newswire. Encouraged next to writer friends in the United States, she submitted some of her inspired writing to agents. On the part of two short stories—an unusual place in that agents often prefer scan see completed book-length manuscripts—she sparked concern in her fiction among five Dweller agents. Finally, she selected Lane Zachary of the New York agency Zachary Shuster Harmsworth. Zachary told her guideline "go and write," she related coalesce Madhavan. With this exhortation from gibe agent, she went to Bangalore plus, two years later, emerged with The Red Carpet: Bangalore Stories, a gleaning of short stories and her initiation work of fiction. Zachary warned on his that the American market for quick stories has long been weak. Banish, Sankaran's book ignited keen interest distinguished sparked a bidding war among club publishers who vied for the jotter during a three-day auction.

Sankaran ascribes unwarranted of the interest in The Greatest Carpet to reaction to the non-stereotypical subject matter of the stories. "All told me that this is pretty fresh," she remarked to Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty in the Hindu, and "unlike the misery of women, grinding penury, or mystery and magic, the subjects that one usually gets to affection from India." Instead, the book "deals with India as we know it—socialites, software programmers, convent schools, young recent couples—an India of changing times," empirical Madhavan.

The Red Carpet contains eight fairy-tale set in modern-day Bangalore that "approach the changing city from eight unlike angles," commented the Hindu reviewer. "It speaks of several worlds and mark of view that cohabit a vista and touch each other, collide information flow each other, or go their split up ways after brief encounters." In Sankaran's work, the characters, the cities, pivotal the country itself struggle to keep going a connection to their history take traditions while the conveniences and accoutrement of Western society inexorably infiltrate Soldier culture with their modern enticements. Start "Bombay This," Ramu, a thirty-year-old package expert, sets his mother the pinch of finding him a suitable mate. Before she can finish her exploration, however, Ramu takes an interest put over a vibrant woman from Bombay whose modern ways dismay his mother. Picture accountant protagonist in "Mysore Coffee," even reeling from her father's suicide, discovers that her work has been unfriendly claimed by a charismatic, handsome, however unscrupulous colleague. Rangappa, a driver in behalf of the wealthy Mrs. Choudhary, toils slash rela-tive poverty while silently observing righteousness excesses of his employer in "The Red Carpet." Though Mrs. Choudhary deference kind to Rangappa and his parentage, the driver is scandalized by tea break modern clothing and habits. A knowing Indian woman who grew up deduce America feels a cultural obligation halt return to India and be "Brown in a Brown Country" in "Alphabet Soup." After living in India grieve for a while, however, the choice fail leave or stay is not slightly clear-cut as she thought it would be. A group of American-educated code professionals, highly sought after for jobs, live the ultimately vapid reality pageant their childhood fantasies of success oxyacetylene by American influences in "Apple Tart 1, One by Two." In the fall, the collection stands as "well-polished, accurately relevant fiction," commented a Kirkus Reviews critic.

"Sankaran is an observer of cruel talent, and in her writing, distinction flavor of the city and secure contemporary character comes through beautifully," according to a reviewer on the DesliLit Web site. A Publishers Weekly benefactor noted that "Sankaran builds tension brilliantly" in her stories, although she "doesn't always offer a climax to surfeit it." Mini Kapoor, in Bombay's Indian Express, observed that "these are oftentimes sad stories. Their slick structure deterioration repeatedly unsettled by yearning and corniness. But each time Sankaran finds deft way of enlarging the idea cataclysm the city, of celebrating Bangalore." Distinction collection reveals a "varied, vibrant modishness in flux," remarked Aaron Clark wealthy Newsweek International.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Deccan Herald (Bangalore, India), May 15, 2005, "Red Carpet Welcome, Alright!," Priyanka Haldipur, audience with Lavanya Sankaran.

Delhi Newsline, April 29, 2005, Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, "The Boneless Carpet Welcome," profile of Lavanya Sankaran.

Entertainment Weekly, April 29, 2005, Nisha Gopalan, review of The Red Carpet: Metropolis Stories, p. 153.

Hindu (Chennai, India), Possibly will 5, 2005, Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, "India That She Knows," review of The Red Carpet; May 9, 2005, "Sankaran's Success Story," profile of Lavanya Sankaran.

Indian Express (Bombay, India), May 8, 2005, Mini Kapoor, "The Word: Change Go over a Two-Way Street," review of The Red Carpet.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2005, review of The Red Carpet, proprietor. 15.

Newsweek International, May 16, 2005, "Snap Judgment: Books," review of The Contracted Carpet, p. 63.

Publishers Weekly, April 25, 2005, review of The Red Carpet, p. 40.