Sharanya Manivannan was born in Madras, India in 1985, and grew up in Sri Lanka and Malaysia. Her first book of poems, Witchcraft (Bullfighter Books, 2008), was praised in The Straits Times as being “sensuous and spiritual, delicate and dangerous and as full as the moon reflected in a knife”. She is currently working on a book of stories (The High Priestess Never Marries), a novel (Constellation of Scars), as well as two manuscripts of new poems (Bulletproof Offering and Cadaver Exquisito).

She received the Lavanya Sankaran Fellowship for 2008-2009 from Sangam House International Writers’ Residency, an Elle Fiction Award 2012 (for “Greed and the Gandhi Quartet”) and was nominated for a 2012 Pushcart Prize (for “I Will Come Bearing Mangoes”, Rougarou, Fall 2011).

A journalist and columnist, she wrote a personal column, “The Venus Flytrap” for The New Indian Express from 2008 to 2011.

Noted in particular for her unusual charisma on stage, Sharanya has done readings extensively since 2001, at venues as diverse as an abandoned pier, a cemetery and the Borobudur Temple. Literary festivals she has performed at include Utan Kayu International Literary Biennale (Indonesia, 2007), Singapore Writers’ Festival (Singapore, 2007), Poetry With Prakriti  (India, 2007), Ubud Writers & Readers Festival (Indonesia, 2008), Wordstorm: The Festival of Australasian Writing (Australia, 2010) and Poetry Parnassus (UK, 2012).