Quick Facts
Biography
Mridula Susan Koshy (born 1969) is an Indian writer. She lives in New Delhi with her three children.
Professional life
Koshy was born in Delhi and migrated to the US in the 1980s, at the age of 15. She has worked as a cashier at a Kentucky Fried Chicken, swap-meet sales clerk, backstage dresser at fashion shows, waitress, polisher of silverware, writing adviser, a house painter, receptionist at a law firm, collator of tax forms, trade union organiser and community organiser.
She currently works as a librarian and community organiser with the Deepalaya Community Library Project, which runs a free community library for over 250 children from working-class families in the south Delhi neighbourhood of Sheikh Sarai. It has another branch in Sanjay Colony in Okhla.
Her collection of short stories, If It Is Sweet won the 2009 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2009 Vodafone Crossword Book Award.
Her first novel, Not Only the Things That Have Happened (Harper Collins, 2012) was shortlisted for the 2013 Crossword Book Award.
Koshy's books often explore the lives of Delhi's working class. Her latest novel Bicycle Dreaming focuses on family life in a waste worker community in Delhi. It follows a 13-year-old girl named Noor, who dreams of owning a bicycle and working as a kabadiwala like her father. However, the loss of his job forces him to work as a ragpicker, adversely affecting her family.
Her stories have appeared in literary journals including Wasafiri, Prairie Fire, The Dalhousie Review and Existere, as well as in anthologies in India, the United Kingdom and Italy.
Reviews
- Review of Bicycle Dreaming in The Hindu, February 2016
- Review of Bicycle Dreaming in Hindustan Times, August 2016
- Review of Not Only The Things That Have Happened in India Today, January 2013
- Review of Not Only The Things That Have Happened in Sunday Guardian, February, 2013
- Review of Not Only The Things That Have Happened from People Magazine, May, 2-13
- Review of If It Is Sweet in Outlook Magazine, June 2009
- Review of If It Is Sweet, in Tehelka, June 2009
- Review of "The Large Girl" in The Hindu Literary Review, July 2007
- Review of "The Large Girl" in India Today, April 2007
