Announcing an exciting new collaboration

South Asia Speaks + A Suitable Agency

South Asia Speaks and A Suitable Agency announce an exciting collaboration to help guide new writers on their publishing journey

24 September 2021

South Asia Speaks, an extensive literary mentorship programme for new and early career writers, is partnering with the literary agency A Suitable Agency to extend support to their writers in understanding the publishing landscape while also giving them the opportunity to pitch their work on completion of their projects.

South Asia Speaks was created in 2020 to strengthen the writing community in South Asia. It is a literary mentorship for early career writers living in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan, Nepal, and Maldives, with mentors based around the globe. The programme’s mentors help exceptional early career writers develop a major project, such as a book, a translated work, or a series of reported pieces. The programme is completely free, and mentors volunteer their time. Their list of eminent mentors includes Prayaag Akbar, Deepa Anappara, Fatima Bhutto, Diksha Basu, Rahul Bhatia, Isaac Chotiner, Avni Doshi, McKenzie Funk, Sonia Faleiro, Samar Halarnkar, Marc Herman, Tania James, Taran N. Khan, Aruni Kashyap, Nikita Lalwani, Mira Kamdar, Karan Mahajan, Mujib Mashal, Aanchal Malhotra, Sanam Maher, Arunava Sinha, Samanth Subramanian, Mahesh Rao, Altaf Tyrewala, Madhuri Vijay and Mirza Waheed.

A Suitable Agency was created in 2020 with the aim of representing writers across all genres, and working with them to find their books the widest audiences, across formats and platforms. From providing editorial feedback, working on the pitch, taking the work to publishers and identifying the best publishing home to then handholding the writers through the entire publishing process and beyond, A Suitable Agency seeks to look after their writers’ best interests. They represent a broad range of writers, including Prabhakar Aloka, Sarnath Banerjee, Remo Fernandes, Fiona Fernandez, Anindita Ghose, Aayush Gupta, S. Hareesh, Julia Hauser, Radhika Iyengar, Jayasree Kalathil, Saharu Nusaiba Kannanari, Vikas Khanna, Amitava Kumar, K.R. Meera, Ameya Nagarajan, Pallavi Nath, Riva Razdan, Kartik Shanker, Bikram Sharma and Anukriti Upadhyay.    

‘South Asia Speaks is committed to discovering, mentoring, and helping to accelerate exciting new writers in South Asia working on ambitious and valuable new projects. We are delighted to partner with A Suitable Agency to help them in their efforts to discover unique talents, and for them to help our fellows advance their work and reach a wider audience.’

—Sonia Faleiro, Founder, South Asia Speaks

‘At A Suitable Agency, we’re always eager to discover extraordinary new writing, and we’re delighted to partner with South Asia Speaks who are doing such excellent work in mentoring new talent and helping them shape their projects. We’re also looking forward to help navigate the publishing landscape for these writers, who are relatively new to the world of publishing.’

—Hemali Sodhi, Founder, A Suitable Agency

For more information on South Asia Speaks, please contact:

Email: speaksouthasia@gmail.com

For more information on A Suitable Agency, please contact:

Email: writetous@asuitableagency.com