Ira Mathur
Journalist / Author
Ira Mathur is an award-winning India-born Trinidadian multimedia journalist. Her memoir Love the Dark Days (Peepal Tree Press) was the winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction, and shortlisted for the overall prize. It was also named as among the best biographies of 2022 by the UK Guardian. In May 2024, the first Indian edition of Love the Dark Days will be published by Speaking Tiger Books, one of India's most acclaimed independent publishers.
In 2021 she was longlisted for the Bath Novel Award for her unpublished novel Touching Dr Simone. Mathur gained diplomas in creative writing at the University of East Anglia/Guardian with Gillian Slovo and James Scudamore and at The Faber Academy with Maggie Gee. She is currently the Trinidad Guardian’s longest-running columnist and has freelanced for the UK Guardian and the BBC. She is the current President of the Media Association of Trinidad & Tobago (MATT). She has degrees in literature and law, and a Master’s in International Journalism. Her body of journalism is available on www.irasroom.org.
One on One with Geetanjali Shree
In her International Booker Prize-winning novel Tomb of Sand, Geetanjali Shree explores the traumas of history and how they shape the present — and what it means to be a woman in today’s India. She talks about the groundbreaking elements of this monumental work with Ira Mathur, winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction for her memoir Love The Dark Days, on three generations of women, set in India and the Caribbean.In her International Booker Prize-winning novel Tomb of Sand, Geetanjali Shree explores the traumas of history and how they shape the present — and what it means to be a woman in today’s India. She talks about the groundbreaking elements of this monumental work with Ira Mathur, winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction for her memoir Love The Dark Days, on three generations of women, set in India and the Caribbean.