Sindhi author at South Asian festival in Washington, DC

[Gul Agha <agha@CS.UIUC.EDU>]

>From: Khalid Hashmani <khashmani@hotmail.com>

To all those living or visiting Washington DC next weekend,

The Smithsonian is organizing a dazzling festival of South Asia
Literary and Theatre Arts at the Baird Auditorium on Saturday (Nov 20)
and Sunday (Nov 21) from 10 AM to 5 PM. Ms Neela Vaswani, a Sindhi
with roots in Ireland, will he ready reading her article at the
festival.

The details about the festival are given below.

Neela Vaswani lives in New York. Her short stories have appeared in
numerous journals, including Prairie Schooner, American Literary
Review, and Global City Review. In1999, she was awarded the Italo
Calvino Prize. She is a Ph.D.  candidate at the University of
Maryland, and teaches in the Master of Fine Arts in Writing program at
Spalding University.

A review of her book "Where The Long Grass Bends" says that the book
is a delight of invention and language. In whirling,
catch-me-if-you-can prose, Vaswani tells stories that subvert
conventional narrative by employing Indian lore, Gaelic fable, and
historical legend. Spare, fierce, and unpredictable, this debut
collection is boundless, even boundary-less, because Vaswani has, as
David Garnett said of Virginia Woolf, a mind that sticks to nothing."

Those of you who plan to attend the Sindhi community lunch sponsored
by the local chapter of Sindhi Association of North America (SANA) on
Sunday, November 21, 2004 may want make it an all-day affair by
visiting the festival either before or after the community
gathering. The luncheon venue is only located
 about 2-3 miles from the Smithsonian.

Regards,

Khalid Hashmani