Ananya Deshpande
Novelist & Short Story Writer
“Step into worlds where old cities whisper their secrets, where memory and desire tangle like jasmine on a monsoon wall, and where every sentence is a door left ajar.”
NEW RELEASE
“The Lantern Keeper”
A Novel of Light in Dark Places
When Meera inherits her grandmother’s crumbling haveli in Lucknow, she discovers a hidden room filled with handwritten letters spanning three generations. As she pieces together the story of women who loved fiercely and lost quietly, Meera must decide whether to sell the house or fight for a legacy the city is trying to forget.
“A luminous debut... Deshpande writes about inheritance and memory with the precision of a miniaturist.” — The Hindu Literary Review
More Stories to Discover
LITERARY FICTION
The Silk Merchant’s Daughter
Set in the fading grandeur of Varanasi’s silk trade, Kamala navigates the collision between tradition and modernity when her father’s workshop faces closure. A richly textured portrait of craft, family loyalty, and the cost of progress on the banks of the Ganga.
SHORT STORIES
A Monsoon of Letters
Twelve interconnected stories set across Mumbai, Pune, and Konkan — each unfolding during the monsoon season. From a postman who reads every letter he delivers, to a widow who writes to her dead husband, these tales explore how rain reveals the truths we hide in dry weather.
HISTORICAL FICTION
The Cartographer of Forgotten Rivers
In 1857, a young mapmaker in Delhi is tasked with charting the city’s vanishing waterways. As the Uprising engulfs the streets, her maps become both a record of what was and a blueprint for what might still be saved. A sweeping novel about memory, resistance, and the landscapes we carry within us.
POETRY
Ghazals for a Broken City
A collection of 40 ghazals tracing the emotional geography of Hyderabad — its disappearing chai stalls, its syncretic history, its stubborn beauty. Written in English with the formal constraints of the Urdu ghazal tradition, these poems are both elegy and celebration.
Welcome, Fellow Reader
Namaste! I’m Ananya Deshpande. I grew up in Pune surrounded by my grandfather’s stories about a pre-Partition Lahore he could never return to, and my mother’s quiet insistence that every house has its own ghost. Those two inheritances — nostalgia and the uncanny — thread through everything I write.
I studied English literature at Fergusson College and later completed an MFA at the University of East Anglia. My work has appeared in Granta, The Caravan, Wasafiri, and the Indian Quarterly. I now live in a book-cluttered flat in Bandra with two cats who have strong opinions about my drafts.
When I’m not writing, I lead creative writing workshops across India and curate a quarterly reading list for the Bombay Literary Society. I believe that every reader is a collaborator — the story only comes alive when you bring your own ghosts to it.
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Unpublished Excerpts
Read chapters from my next novel before anyone else — along with notes on how the story is evolving.
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“This isn’t just another mailing list — it’s your window into the workshop, the library, and the chai-fuelled conversations behind the books.”
Get in Touch
For media requests, translation rights, event bookings, or collaborations — reach me at ananya@inkwellpages.com
I read every message personally, though a reply may take a few days if I’m deep in a draft!