Officially speaking…
Sharanya Manivannan was born in India in 1985 and grew up in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. She is the author of a book of poems, Witchcraft (Bullfighter Books, 2008), which carries a foreword by Indran Amirthanayagam. The recipient of the Lavanya Sankaran Fellowship for 2008-2009 from the Sangam House International Writers’ Residency she is working on her first novel, Constellation of Scars, as well as a second collection of poems, Bulletproof Offering. Iyari, a handmade chapbook of poems and illustrations, was published in 2006. Her column, “The Venus Flytrap”, appears fortnightly in Zeitgeist, the Saturday supplement of The New Indian Express.
Her solo show, Ochre As The Earth, held in June 2007, was a pioneering event in the Kuala Lumpur arts scene. As a spoken word artist, she has performed at dozens of venues in the last six years, from indie cafes to the Borobudur Temple in Indonesia.
She has been a guest of the Utan Kayu International Literary Biennale 2007, Singapore Writers’ Festival 2007, Poetry With Prakriti 2007 and Ubud Writers & Readers Festival 2008. She lives in India.
Praise
“Sharanya Manivannan’s voice has the innocence and fearlessness of one who is lost in the dance. The speed of her unbridled tongue makes Witchcraft a memorable ride. Yeh haal hai kamsini mein, toh kitne ghazab hongey jawani mein.” – Mani Rao, author of Echolocation
“Full of raw passion and a daring fire, these poetic declarations are attuned to the lessons of Indian myths and stories, reclaiming them in that age-old battle for an empowered womanhood.” – Cyril Wong, recipient of the 2006 Singapore Literature Prize.
“Sharanya Manivannan’s work of literary art is not for those who are looking for daffodils and rolling green landscapes. She strips a woman’s psyche to the bare bones and is fearless in portraying men and women as they really are. They are not popular, these ‘opinions’ but she goes to the roots of man’s neuroses, fears and desires. Sharanya is an intuitive writer to be watched.” – Dina Zaman, author of I Am Muslim
“Sharanya Manivannan is a writer of boldness, the body and its blood, an elemental singing of dark luscious desires, an erotic, sexual woman’s voice. Bless her torch-like tongue.” –Mông-Lan, author of Tango, Tangoing: Poems & Art
“Sharanya Manivannan is the Sri Lankan womanist poet I’ve been waiting for – a writer with guts and passion and precision, brave enough to tell all the Sri Lankan women’s stories that have been needing to be told for too long. Incredibly fierce!” – Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (Consensual Genocide)
“I am moved by Sharanya’s poems, excited by the worlds she describes — modernity flowering in tradition’s gardens, the yoking of different and sometimes irreconcilable experiences. Her poetry springs from loss, separation, sometimes union. I like the catholicity of her tastes, her broad embrace of literature and experience from cultures far from each other on the planet, yet side by side in her poems.” – Indran Amirthanayagam (The Elephants of Reckoning, winner of the 1994 Paterson Poetry Prize)
“I love Sharanya’s poems: they are breathtakingly beautiful. They’re very musical and her imagery is not just rich but has the sort of precise tactility that’s hard to come by, not at all sentimental.” – Laksmi Pamuntjak (Ellipsis)
“Sharanya Manivannan can make you weep. She moves in mysterious ways. She fills in the blanks.” – Francesca Beard (Chinese Whispers tour)
“Sharanya is one of those writers who reaffirm your belief in the creative future of poetry. Her poems excite at the same time with the burst of youth and the slow seep of old wisdom. Her images are physical and thought-provoking. They often startle with their unexpected aptness. They are erotic, sad, disturbing. She is equally at home with poetry and prose. I think Sharanya, given the space to grow, will zoom.” – Shreekumar Varma (The Lament of Mohini)
“Onstage, she exacts a commanding presence, her reading voice and image sensual, lyrical, literate and emotionally charged… There’s a winning combination of rawness and finesse in her work that’s quite astounding… A great poet in the making.” – Klue Magazine, June 2007
“Truly an old soul… Her words [pulsate] with sensuality, pain and mercurial energy.” – TELL Magazine, August 2007
“[A] rising star.” – The Jakarta Post, November 2007
Selected Press
Interview on HowToTellAGreatStory.Com, November 2006
Article in Klue Magazine, June 2007
Interview in Zero Degrees Magazine, June 2007
Interview in New Man Magazine, June 2007
Article in TELL Magazine, August 2007
In Conversation: Interviewed by Syar S. Alia
In Conversation: Interviewed by Kenny Mah
In Conversation: Interviewed by Nicholas Wong
Article in The New Indian Express (City Express, Chennai), March 2008
Contact
sharanya (dot) manivannan (at) gmail (dot) com
But really just…
I was a cheerleader in high school. My best score on Minesweeper is 4 seconds at the beginner level. If I was a sin I’d be gluttony. If I was an element I’d be earth. I have forty pairs of shoes and none of them are sneakers.
