Photo: Riccardo Vencato
Tishani Doshi publishes poetry, fiction and essays. For fifteen years she worked as the lead dancer of the Chandralekha company in Madras, India, performing on stages all across the world, and as such, the body has been a central preoccupation in her work—a vehicle to explore gender, violence, sexuality and power, but also as an agent of renewal and transformation. Since her debut, Countries of the Body, which won the Forward Prize for best first collection (2006), she has sought to find joineries between the lyric and the political. Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods (2017) headlined the All About Women Festival at the Sydney Opera House and was shortlisted for a Ted Hughes Award. Her novels, The Pleasure Seekers (2010) and Small Days and Nights (2019), have been shortlisted for the Hindu Fiction Prize, Tata Fiction Award and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. A God at the Door, her most recent collection of poems, was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize 2021. Her most recent choreography, Nyasa, was performed as the closing performance of the Sharjah Biennial 2025.
She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Associate Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at New York University, Abu Dhabi.
Tishani performs Girls Are Coming out of the Woods at the Jaipur Literature Festival
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Diptych by Michael Vatikiotis
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Chandralekha 1928-2006. Photo: Sadanand Menon
DANCE DANCE DANCE
Tishani's first performance on stage was as at age 3. She was a flower.
In school she choreographed ABBA's The Winner Takes it All for a talent competition and shared first place with a guy dressed as a ghost. For several years she also participated in the Madras Gymkhana Club swimming galas in the synchronised swimming event with a candle on top of her head.
At 26, a chance encounter with the legendary choreographer CHANDRALEKHA led to an unexpected and more serious career in dance.
From 2001-2016 she was the lead dancer in the Chandralekha Troupe and toured with Chandralekha's final choreography SHARIRA, performing on stages across the world from Tokyo, Taiwan, Champaner, Bhopal, Bombay, Munich, Calcutta, Toronto, Frankfurt, Salzburg, Sydney, and Madras.
Tishani's first performance on stage was as at age 3. She was a flower.
In school she choreographed ABBA's The Winner Takes it All for a talent competition and shared first place with a guy dressed as a ghost. For several years she also participated in the Madras Gymkhana Club swimming galas in the synchronised swimming event with a candle on top of her head.
At 26, a chance encounter with the legendary choreographer CHANDRALEKHA led to an unexpected and more serious career in dance.
From 2001-2016 she was the lead dancer in the Chandralekha Troupe and toured with Chandralekha's final choreography SHARIRA, performing on stages across the world from Tokyo, Taiwan, Champaner, Bhopal, Bombay, Munich, Calcutta, Toronto, Frankfurt, Salzburg, Sydney, and Madras.
poet as a young flower (centre)
THIS & THAT
Festival appearances: Hay -- Wales, Cartagena, Dhaka, Segovia, Xalapa, Kerala; Jaipur Literary Festival- Jaipur, Maldives, Valladolid; Apeejay-Oxford Calcutta Literary Festival; Abu Dhabi Book Fair; StAnza; Kala Ghoda; Singapore Sun Festival; Incroci di Civilita (Venice); Mantova Literature Festival; Etonnants-Voyageurs, St Malo; Berlin International Festival; Brooklyn Book Festival; Galle Literary Festival; Melbourne Writer's Festival; Cuirt International Festival; Ubud Writer's Festival; Jahazi Literary & Jazz Festival, Zanzibar; Berlin Poetry Festival; St. Martin's Book Fair, Bocas (Trinidad) & Calabash (Jamaica); Queensland Poetry Festival (Brisbane), Dhaka Literary Festival, Blue Mountain's Writer's Festival, Byron Bay Writer's Festival, Listowel Writer's Week, Dalkey Book Festival, Port Eliot Festival, Georgetown Literary Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Mountain Echoes (Bhutan), Emirates Literature Festival, Abu Dhabi Book Fair, AWP, All about Women Festival (Sydney).
Published in: The Guardian, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Hindu, The Weekend Financial Times, Vogue, Elle, India Today, The National, Corriere della Sera, Open Magazine, The New Indian Express, Granta, Orion, The Indian Express, the Times Literary Supplement & Others
THIS & THAT
Festival appearances: Hay -- Wales, Cartagena, Dhaka, Segovia, Xalapa, Kerala; Jaipur Literary Festival- Jaipur, Maldives, Valladolid; Apeejay-Oxford Calcutta Literary Festival; Abu Dhabi Book Fair; StAnza; Kala Ghoda; Singapore Sun Festival; Incroci di Civilita (Venice); Mantova Literature Festival; Etonnants-Voyageurs, St Malo; Berlin International Festival; Brooklyn Book Festival; Galle Literary Festival; Melbourne Writer's Festival; Cuirt International Festival; Ubud Writer's Festival; Jahazi Literary & Jazz Festival, Zanzibar; Berlin Poetry Festival; St. Martin's Book Fair, Bocas (Trinidad) & Calabash (Jamaica); Queensland Poetry Festival (Brisbane), Dhaka Literary Festival, Blue Mountain's Writer's Festival, Byron Bay Writer's Festival, Listowel Writer's Week, Dalkey Book Festival, Port Eliot Festival, Georgetown Literary Festival, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Mountain Echoes (Bhutan), Emirates Literature Festival, Abu Dhabi Book Fair, AWP, All about Women Festival (Sydney).
Published in: The Guardian, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Hindu, The Weekend Financial Times, Vogue, Elle, India Today, The National, Corriere della Sera, Open Magazine, The New Indian Express, Granta, Orion, The Indian Express, the Times Literary Supplement & Others
