BIOGRAPHY
Debarati Mukhopadhyay
Author · Government officer · TEDx speaker
Debarati Mukhopadhyay is an Indian author working in Bengali and English, a government officer and a TEDx speaker. Across more than thirty novels, her writing moves through history, crime, mythology and the lives of women.
Forgotten lives recur in her fiction: people caught between public events and private loyalties, whose stories rarely survive intact in the record.
THE WRITING
Across languages and histories
Her books include Narach, Krishnasindhuki, Shikhandi, Dasgupta Travels and the Rudra–Priyom mysteries. The range is wide, but an interest in the human consequences of history runs through much of her work.
Narach reached English readers as Chronicles of the Lost Daughters, translated by Arunava Sinha and published by HarperCollins. Alongside her books, she writes for Bengali literary magazines and journals. Her work has also travelled into cinema, audio storytelling and screen adaptation.
She continues to write alongside her career in government service, meeting readers through book tours, literary festivals and conversations about books and ideas.
SELECTED RECOGNITION
Literary honours
Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar shortlist, 2021
Dasgupta Travels
Devi Award, 2022
The New Indian Express Group
Shailajananda Puraskar
Tagore Samman
FORTHCOMING · ORIGINAL ENGLISH FICTION
Revolutionary Road
A Bomb Maker’s Search for Love and Freedom
Her first novel originally written in English follows revolutionary Ullaskar Dutta and his relationship with Leela. Love, humour and private longing sit beside the struggle for independence.
Forthcoming from Om Books International.
The Ullaskar Trilogy · Book One
FORTHCOMING · BENGALI & ENGLISH
Kashi, Sindh and a mystery across time
Kashite Dubchhe Karachir Chand
and its English edition, Four Girls Died on Paper
A present-day mystery in Kashi reaches back to four girls in Sindh on the eve of Partition. The Bengali edition is the seventh Rudra–Priyom novel, published by Deep Prakashan.
Announced release: 14 November 2026
One novel in two separate language editions.
BEYOND THE BOOKS
History. Attention. Conversation.
Beyond fiction, Debarati brings her interests in history and attention to two public initiatives.
She founded Footnote Zero to bring overlooked people, archival discoveries and neglected histories into public conversation.
She is also the founder of UPRĀNA™, an initiative centred on attention and everyday practice, organised around the sequence Leak → Lock → Direct.
TALKS & LITERARY INVITATIONS
In conversation
A TEDx speaker and a regular participant in literary conversations, she speaks about writing, history and the questions that connect books with everyday life.
For talks, interviews, book-club discussions and literary invitations: