Creating Wonders with Pen: Jahnavi Barua

Assam has been the birthplace of many far-fetched writers. From Bhavendra Nath Saikia to Indira Goswami, all of them has acclaimed immense national acclamation. The rich Assamese literature has been well retained by the likes of Anuradha Sarma Pujari to Rita Choudhury. But people have been saying that Assamese are the master in the own language, and that has probably been their reason for a lesser amount of International recognition. Though nationally the writers have been honoured to the highest, yet they fail to mark a name in the common Indians heart, excluding the Assamese. Hard fact but true.

But the trend seem to have changed a bit now, Assamese writers have stared to change the trend and started writing in internationally recognized standard and have broken the trend of merely achieving excellence in their own language. One thing is mush share is that, Assamese people are very good with English. A recent survey in Times of India suggested that Assamese are the second most successful in TOEFL, an international English test globally, even surpassing the English People. Today here I write about Jahnavi Barua, an Assamese writer based in Bangaluru,who has been short-listed for Man Asian Literary Prize 2011 for her book Rebirth, competing amongst the likes of Amitav Gosh in the fray. This is indeed something to be proud of for all the Assamese out there.

Jahanavi moved to Bangalore 17 years ago, to study medical and writing happens to be accidental for her. She won a short fiction story competition organized by Unisun Publication and British Council in 2005 and since then there has been to turning back. She has been writing in with North East being her back drop. "Next Door Stories" was a collection of short stories from Assam published by Penguin India. 

She admires Assam and North-East a lot and in spite of living in Bangalore, she is a regular visitor to Assam. A doctor by profession, Jahnavi Barua has made Assam really proud and we must hope that she wins the Man Asian Literary Award 2011 and Brings proud to the state. Wishing her all the luck and success.