Dr Deepa Anappara

Overview

Deepa Anappara was born in Kerala, southern India, and worked as a journalist in India for eleven years. Her reports on the impact of poverty and religious violence on the education of children won the Developing Asia Journalism Awards, the Every Human has Rights Media Awards, and the Sanskriti-Prabha Dutt Fellowship in Journalism.

Her debut novel 'Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line' was named as one of the best books of the year by 'The New York Times,' 'The Washington Post,' ‘Time,' NPR, and 'The Guardian,' among others. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian Literature, the McKitterick prize, the Author’s Club First Novel award, and the Kitschies’ Golden Tentacle. It is being translated into 23 languages. The novel also won the Deborah Rogers Prize, the Lucy Cavendish Prize, and the Bridport prize for first novel-in-progress.

Anappara is the co-editor of 'Letters to a Writer of Colour,' a collection of personal essays on fiction, race, and culture, published by Random House (US) and Vintage (UK) in March 2023.

Her second novel 'The Last of Earth' was published in 2026. It was featured as one of BBC's '12 Books to Read in 2026'. 

She has an MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) and a PhD in Creative-Critical Writing from the University of East Anglia, Norwich. Her doctoral research was funded by CHASE-AHRC.

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