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Meghna Pant

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Meghna Pant
Pant at the Mumbai book launch of her novel One & A Half Wife
Pant at the Mumbai book launch of her novel One & A Half Wife
BornShimla, Himachal Pradesh, India
OccupationAuthor, Journalist, Screenwriter
LanguageEnglish
EducationMBA
Alma materSt. Xaviers College (Mumbai), Nanyang Business School (Singapore), University of St Gallen (Switzerland)
GenresNovels, Short Story, Screenplays, Feminism
Notable worksBoys Don't Cry,One & A Half Wife, How To Get Published in India,Happy Birthday!, Feminist Rani, The Trouble With Women
Website
www.meghnapant.com

Meghna Pant is an Indian author, journalist and speaker. She has won a variety of awards for her contribution to literature, gender issues and journalism. In 2012, she won the Muse India National Literary Awards Young Writer Award for her debut novel One-and-a-Half Wife. Her collection of short stories, Happy Birthday and Other Stories was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Award.[1]

Career

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Pant previously worked as a business news anchor with Times Now, NDTV and Bloomberg-UTV in Mumbai and New York City.[2][3] She reported from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) during the 2008 financial crisis.[1] She quit in 2013 to pursue writing full-time,[1] and returned to India.[3]

Her debut novel One & a Half Wife (Westland, 2012) won the national Muse India Young Writer Award (2014) and was shortlisted for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.[4]

Pant's debut collection of short stories Happy Birthday[1] (Random House, 2013) was long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Award (2014).[5] Her second short story collection The Trouble With Women was published in 2016.

In 2015, she began curating a monthly panel discussion in Mumbai called "Feminist Rani", featuring interviews with a wide range of Indian feminists.[3][6] After three years of the discussions, she published a collection of the interviews in her first non-fiction book Feminist Rani in 2018,[3] co-authored with Shaili Chopra.[7] Her second non-fiction book was How To Get Published in India in 2019, based on interviews with publishing industry insiders and authors.[8]

Pant has written on issues including consent, rape,[9] domestic violence,[10] miscarriage,[11] surrogacy, body-shaming[12] and public safety for women for various publications, including The Hindustan Times[13] and The Huffington Post,[14] and was the Features Editor at SheThePeople.TV.[15] In 2018, she was awarded the Laadli Media Award for her writing on gender equality.[16]

As a survivor of domestic violence, she has also spoken on several platforms, including TEDx,[17] on her personal experience, urging women to speak out against domestic violence.[1][18] She has also spoken at literary festivals and conferences, including the Jaipur Literature Festival,[19] Tata Literature Live!,[20] Kala Ghoda Literature Festival,[21] Pune International Literary Festival,[22] Young Makers Conclave, #RiseWithTwitter, and The UN Feminist Conference. In 2018, Pant moderated panel discussions at the #MeToo Conversations event hosted by Firstpost.[23]

Pant's short stories have been published in Avatar Review,[24] Wasafari, Eclectica,[25] and QLRS,[26] and her story "Boonthing" was published in the anthology The Himalayan Arc: Journeys East of South-east.

She also anchors various women-centric shows for the news portal FirstPost.[27][28]

In 2019, Pant appeared as an expert on the show Kaun Banega Crorepati with Amitabh Bachchan.[29]

In 2020, Pant became a podcaster with a show about personal finance called SHOW ME THE MONEY, for Amazon's Audible.[30]

Critical reception

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According to Michelle D'Souza of the Khaleej Times, her "works come with strong feminist leanings, and showcase multi-dimensional characters, especially women."[31]

Her short story collection The Trouble With Women was reviewed by Aditya Mani Jha of Business Line, who writes that in the book, Pant "shows us how it’s done, how a skilled writer uses journalistic base to create a convincing, sensitive fictional scenario," and references her previous story collection Happy Birthday as an additional example.[32]

Feminist Rani was praised by Kamla Bhasin as "A powerful, sensitive and thought-provoking book that is a must-read for anyone who thinks that women and men are equals, and for those who don’t."[7]

Her story "Boonthing" was referred to as "sparkling" in a review by Abdus Salam of the anthology The Himalayan Arc: Journeys East of South-east in The Hindu,[33] and she was described as one of the authors that 'shines through' by Prannay Pathak of the Hindustan Times.[34]

Tanvi Trivedi of The Times of India described How To Get Published in India as "sure to answer many questions nesting in the minds of aspiring authors."[35]

After Pant retold the epic poem The Mahabharata in one hundred tweets, Sian Cain of The Guardian wrote, "Somehow, Meghna Pant has managed to contain all of the dynamics of power struggle, war, love, lust and greed in her 140 character tidbits."[36]

Honors and awards

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Bibliography

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Novels

  • Boys Don't Cry (2022). Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-0143455097.
  • The Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Good News (2021). Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-0143453543.
  • One & A Half Wife (2012). New Delhi: Westland. ISBN 978-9381626481.

Short Stories

  • Happy Birthday! (2013). London: Random House. ISBN 978-8184004038.
  • The Trouble With Women (2016).

Non-fiction

Personal life

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Born in Shimla, to Sujata and Deep Chandra Pant––both of whom worked in the Indian Revenue Service and retired as Chief Commissioners of Income Tax from Mumbai and Kolkata respectively in 2012,[48] Pant is the sister of stand-up comedian Sorabh Pant.[49] She lives in Mumbai with her husband and two daughters.[50]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e "Author Meghna Pant's new book deals with women, violence and feminism". Hindustan Times. 1 September 2016.
  2. ^ Divyamody (12 September 2017). "25 witty, sharp and fearless women to follow on Twitter". SheThePeople.TV. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  3. ^ a b c d Roy, Lachmi Deb (18 September 2018). "Gender Is Not In Your Genitals But In Your Mind: Meghna Pant". Outlook. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  4. ^ "Meghna Pant". Penguin Random House India. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
  5. ^ Interview – Meghna Pant 1 October 2016, Openroadreview.com
  6. ^ "Green and bear it". Mumbai Mirror.
  7. ^ a b "Penguin releases Shaili Chopra and Meghna Pant's Feminist Rani". Deccan Chronicle. 30 August 2018.
  8. ^ Mishra, Dyuti (23 March 2019). "Authors are vying with Pokémon and Taylor Swift: Meghna Pant". The Hindu. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  9. ^ Pant, Meghna (8 June 2015). "Save Yourself From Rape".
  10. ^ Pant, Meghna (13 April 2015). "Why societal violence of women must stop". SheThePeople.TV. Archived from the original on 24 October 2017. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  11. ^ Pant, Meghna (23 March 2019). "Unpregnant". Livemint.
  12. ^ Pant, Meghna (20 August 2015). "Are Mannequins Making Us Too Thin?".
  13. ^ "Domestic violence can be stopped only if we speak out against it: Meghna Pant". Hindustan Times. 4 March 2017.
  14. ^ "Art Attack: Comedians, Prepare To Be Killed For Your Art". HuffPost India. 20 February 2015.
  15. ^ Team, S. T. P. (29 October 2015). "Driving change with feminism and her books: Meghna Pant".
  16. ^ a b Bureau, BW Online. "Meghna Pant Wins Laadli Media Award". BW Businessworld. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  17. ^ [1] Stop The Violence, Stop The Silence | Meghna Pant | TEDxXLRI
  18. ^ HT Correspondent (4 March 2017). "Five gutsy women make powerful personal statements". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 26 July 2021. {{cite news}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
  19. ^ "Speaker – Meghna Pant". Jaipur Literature Festival. 17 September 2013.
  20. ^ "Mid-Day". 9 October 2019.
  21. ^ "E-103 – Kala Ghoda Art Festival 2016 | Avid Learning". www.avidlearning.in.
  22. ^ Pune Literary Festival Schedule September 2013, ThePunekar.com
  23. ^ "Firstpost's #MeToo Conversations: How must sexual harassment at the workplace be dealt with?". Firstpost. 18 October 2018.
  24. ^ "Avatar Review". avatarreview.ne. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  25. ^ "Eclectica". eclectica.org. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  26. ^ "QLRS". qlrs.com. Retrieved 5 August 2013.
  27. ^ [2] Deepa Malik on First Lady.
  28. ^ [3] Nimrat Kaur on First Lady.
  29. ^ "Kaun Banega Crorepati 11, Day 17 Written Update: Amitabh Bachchan Guides Another Contestant To Significant Victory". NDTV.com.
  30. ^ "Mumbai Diary: Tuesday Dossier". Mid-Day. 28 April 2020.
  31. ^ D'Souza, Michelle (15 August 2021). "Scripting Success". Khaleej Times. Retrieved 17 August 2021.
  32. ^ Jha, Aditya Mani (21 October 2016). "A sociological continuum of remarkable women". The Hindu Business Line.
  33. ^ Salam, Abdus (12 May 2018). "'The Himalayan Arc: Journeys East of South-east' review: Zero-shun game". The Hindu.
  34. ^ "The Himalayan Arc takes a long, hard look at the uneasy realities of the region". Hindustan Times. 23 May 2018.
  35. ^ Trivedi, Tanvi (27 March 2019). "Meghna Pant shares tips on book publishing at this event". The Times of India. Retrieved 26 July 2021.
  36. ^ Cain, Sian (14 March 2014). "#Twitterfiction festival 2014: what you are and are not missing". The Guardian.
  37. ^ "The SOCIETY ACHIEVERS AWARDS 2022 hosted in Maharashtra was a huge success". 23 November 2022.
  38. ^ "The Oxford Bookstore Book Cover Prize reveals its 2023 longlist of 21 books". 21 December 2022.
  39. ^ "Know More About Meghna Pant | IFP". 4 February 2021.
  40. ^ "Author Meghna Pant wins Bharat Nirman Award". 28 April 2017.
  41. ^ Jha, B. K. (26 April 2022). "Kumaon Literary Festival revives Nature Writing". ruralmarketing.in.
  42. ^ "Muse India Awards for Pant, Sinha". The Hindu. 4 January 2013. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
  43. ^ January 2013&pubname=Times+of+India+-+Hyderabad&edname=&articleid=Ar00605&publabel=TOI "Muse India awards announced". The Times of India. Archived from the original on 20 August 2014. Retrieved 14 June 2013. {{cite web}}: Check |archive-url= value (help)
  44. ^ "Storizen Magazine". 20 June 2018.
  45. ^ www.frankoconnor-shortstory-award.net http://www.frankoconnor-shortstory-award.net/site/?page_id=334. Retrieved 25 June 2014. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)[title missing]
  46. ^ Staff writer (10 June 2014). [4]. KITAAB. Retrieved 10 June 2014
  47. ^ "For debutant author Meghna Pant, inspiration comes from unearthing the stories people make up about themselves or others, and discovering the truth behind them". Verve. Retrieved 14 June 2012.
  48. ^ "Bio".
  49. ^ "Sibling Speak". DNA India. Retrieved 18 August 2013.
  50. ^ "Boys Don't Cry: A Novel: SOON TO BE a MAJOR MOTION PICTURE : Pant, Meghna: Amazon.in: Books".
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