Shared Words, Shared Worlds - A New Event for Belfast Mela 2025

Jointly funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and the Prabha Khaitan Foundation in Calcutta, India, the event has been organised by ArtsEkta and is a new addition to the Belfast Mela festival for 2025.

The panel discussion will explore the deep cultural and literary resonances between Ireland and India, British colonialism, and how writers have grappled with questions of identity, resistance, and cultural hybridity.

This unique discussion will trace the intertwined literary journeys of both countries, examining how writers like Rabindranath Tagore and W.B. Yeats sought to reclaim national identity through poetry, storytelling, and cultural revival.

The event will begin with an introductory talk from Indian artist-in-residence Dr. Sanjukta Dasgupta, followed by a panel discussion, chaired by Dr. Satish Kumar from Queen’s University Belfast, with contributions from, Dr. Síobhra Aiken, specialist in Irish and Gaelic Studies and Alicia McAuley, Belfast-based writer specialising in Anglo-Irish literature.

Nisha Tandon, Founder of Belfast Mela and CEO of ArtsEkta said: “Shared Words, Shared Worlds invites us to step into the space where Irish and Indian voices meet — a place shaped by history, resilience, and the universal search for identity. Through literature, we discover that our stories, though born in different lands, often speak the same language of the heart. We are delighted to welcome artist-in-residence Dr. Sanjukta Dasgupta to Belfast as a keynote speaker at this special event to share her rich insights into commonalities between Irish and Indian literature together with a fantastic local line up of top speakers for the academic and literature worlds”.

In addition to the Shared Words, Shared Worlds event, the Arts Council and PK Foundation are also supporting Tala, an evening of classical Indian dance at the Lyric Theare on Friday 22nd August.

Siobhán Molloy, Arts Development Officer (Festivals & International), Arts Council of Northern Ireland, said: “We are pleased to be partnering with the Prabha Khaitan Foundation in Calcutta to welcome two new events to NI audiences this year, delivered by ArtsEkta. This collaboration provides a rare opportunity to bring some of India’s leading literature, storytelling and dance artists to NI. Events like these help to promote cultural exchange and encourage artistic cooperation between India and Europe. They are a fantastic addition to Belfast Mela 2025!”

For more information on Shared Words, Shared Worlds and Tala, visit www.belfastmela.org.uk

BIOGRAPHIES:

Dr Sanjukta Dasgupta

Dr .Sanjukta Dasgupta, Professor and Former Head, Dept of English and Former Dean, Faculty of Arts, Calcutta University has been the recipient of the Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and Fulbright Scholar in Residence (State University of New York, Oswego) Australia India Council fellowship, Gender Studies fellowship, University of British Columbia, Translator Fellowship, BCLT, University of East Anglia, Norwich, among others. Apart from invitations to participate in national and international seminars and conferences Dasgupta has taught and lectured at universities in the USA, UK, Europe, Canada and Australia. She served as the jury member and Chairperson of the Commonwealth Writers Prize, United Kingdom. She was the Convenor of the English Language Board of Sahitya Akademi, Ministry of Culture as well as a member of Sahitya Akademi’s General Council. She is currently a member of the Advisory Committee of the Jnanpith Award. In 2018, she taught in Poland, as Visiting Professor, at the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. She is the Honorary Visiting Professor of the Dept of English, Sister Nivedita University, Kolkata and the Chairperson of the Advisory Board of the Centre Of Excellence in Literature Language and Communication (CELLCS) of The University of Engineering and Management, Kolkata. She is the President of the Executive Committee of the Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, Kolkata.

In October 2024 she delivered two lectures on Tagore’s writings at St. John’s College Oxford University and the Oxford Centre for Hindu studies (OCHS), Oxford University.

Sanjukta Dasgupta received the IWSFF Women Achievers Award in 2019, the WEI Kamala Das Poetry Award in 2020, the ETHOS Literary Award in 2022, Muktadhara Tagore Samman 2024. She was conferred the Governor’s Scroll Of Honour in 2024, and the CLRC National Lifetime Achievement Award 2024. In 2025 as ScoTs Research Affiliate and Visiting Fellow, IASH, University of Edinburgh, she will continue her work on Tagore studies.

Dr. Satish Kumar

Dr M Satish Kumar is a specialist in Indian and South Asian development studies and is currently Director of the Queen’s Academy in India and Senior Lecturer at the School of Geography, Archaeology and Paleoecology at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). He was awarded a Commonwealth Academic Fellowship in 1997 and spent one year at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge. Satish has worked in the higher education sector for 26 years and has dedicated the last 14 years of his career to the development of QUB’s internationalisation agenda, with a particular emphasis on developing research links with universities in India. Additionally, he is engaged in UK-wide initiatives to develop collaborative partnerships between the two countries.

Dr. Síobhra Aiken

Síobhra Aiken joined the Department of Irish and Celtic Studies in April 2021. She holds a BA in European Studies (History, French & Spanish) from Trinity College, an MA in Irish Studies from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Irish-language Translation and Editing from Maynooth University. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2013 and spent a year teaching and researching at Elms College in Springfield, Massachusetts.

She graduated with a PhD in 2020 from the Centre for Irish Studies, National University of Ireland, Galway. Her doctoral dissertation was awarded the Adele Dalsimer Prize by the American Conference for Irish Studies in 2021.

Her research interests include: modernist Irish-language poetry; twentieth-century Irish-language literature; the Gaelic Revival in the United States; 'trauma' and emigration during the Irish Revolution (1916–23); fictionalised testimony by veterans of the Irish Revolution; comparative studies of the Irish and Spanish Civil Wars; the poetry of Máirtín Ó Direáin and Máire Mhac an tSaoi.

Her publications include two edited books, three edited journals as guest editor, an exhibition, a number of peer-reviewed articles and chapters and numerous journalistic articles. Her two edited books include: The Men Will Talk to Me: Ernie O'Malley's Interviews with the Northern Divisions (2018) and An Chuid Eile Díom Féin: Aistí le Máirtín Ó Direáin (2018); the latter won the Phelan Conan Award for Irish-language publication in 2020. She has also contributed to a variety of television documentaries and radio programmes. In October 2022, she guest edited a special edition of the literary journal on the poet, essayist and diplomat Máire Mhac an tSaoi.

Alicia McAuley

Alicia McAuley is an editor and book designer based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She studied English at Trinity College Dublin and has over 15 years’ experience in publishing, with an international roster of clients including Cambridge and Oxford University Presses. Her short stories, flash fiction, non-fiction and poetry have appeared in The Irish Times, The Dublin Review, Banshee and elsewhere, often under the pen-name Jane Lavelle, and been shortlisted for various competitions including the Fish Prize. Her short story ‘Gas and Air’ was highly commended by the An Post Irish Book Awards. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories dealing with the darker aspects of pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood; and a novel, examining the immigrant experience in Northern Ireland. She and her husband, who was born and raised in Karachi, have four young children