TANUJA DESAI HIDIER

Tanuja Desai Hidier, novelist, screenplay writer, director and singer/songwriter, London.

South Asian American Londoner Tanuja Desai Hidier has used her work to turn the stereotypes of an American Confused Desi - a term used to describe second generations who are confused about where their roots lie - into positive strong, confident and self affirming South Asian heroines. Tanuja's first novel, the well received, Born Confused, written in 2000 in her flat in Portobello Road, London, follows Indian-American heroine Dimple Lala through a summer that turns her world on its head. The heart of the book is about learning how to bring two cultures together without falling apart yourself in the process. Soon after the launch of Born Confused Tanuja was the guest editor of Time Out New York where she developed the groundbreaking South Asian New York special.

Tanuja is also a singer/songwriter and is lead singer in a London-based and an NYC based rock/pop duo. A cross Atlantic collaboration called 'When we were twins' was made to accompany her novel Born Confused. The book and album are now on the syllabus of Ivy League's Brown University literature in the USA, Rites of Passage.

The theme of first and second generation South Asians and finding your place in America also figures prominently in her award winning short stories, which have been included in numerous anthologies. Tanuja is a patron of FLAME, Friends of Literacy and Mass Education and is currently working on her second novel.

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