Minal Hajratwala

Minal Hajratwala is a poet, prose writer, and writing coach. She is the author of the award-winning novel Leaving India: My Family’s Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents, called “incomparable” by Alice Walker and “searingly honest” by The Washington Post. The book won the PEN USA Award and the Lambda Literary Award, among other honors. She is also the author of Bountiful Instructions for Enlightenment (poetry) and the Moon: Fiji travel guidebook. She edited Out! Stories from the New Queer India (2013) and co-founded The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective. Minal graduated from Stanford, was a fellow at Columbia, was a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar, and attended the Clarion West workshop in 2019. Her Granta essay “A Brief Guide to Gender in India” was named one of the 10 best pieces of writing on the web for 2015.