Ruth Vanita

Ruth Vanita taught at Delhi University for 20 years and is now Professor at the University of Montana. She was founding co-editor of Manushi 1978-90. She is the author of several books, including Sappho and the Virgin Mary: Same-Sex Love and the English Literary Imagination (1996); Love’s Rite: Same-Sex Marriage in India (2005); Gandhi’s Tiger and Sita’s Smile: Essays on Gender, Sexuality and Culture (2005), Gender, Sex and the City: Urdu Rekhti Poetry in India 1780-1870 (2012); Dancing with the Nation: Courtesans in Bombay Cinema (2017). Her first novel, Memory of Light, appeared in 2020.
She is the author of over 60 articles on British and Indian literature, and has translated many works of fiction and poetry from Hindi and Urdu to English, most notably Chocolate: Stories on Male-Male Desire by Pandey Bechan Sharma ‘Ugra’ (2008). She divides her time between Missoula and Gurgaon.