Lavanya Sankaran Biography and latest books by Lavanya Sankaran

Lavanya Sankaran is the author of an anthology of eight short stories titled The Red Carpet. In this book she has based the stories in Bangalore, the city that is transforming everyday in its physical and psychological contours. Critics comment that Lavanya’s style is dogged and self-conscious rendering a beauty of its own to the characters and situations.

Lavanya was born and brought up in Bangalore before she moved to USA for studies and a job. After living in the US for a few years, she is back in Bangalore and is also writing her novel based in the same city.

Lavanya studied in Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania to become an investment banker. She had said to a website in an interview, “I used to write banking-related articles in The Atlantic Monthly and The Wall Street Journal. The Red Carpet happened without any plan. I was writing these short stories only because I wanted to write them. I wanted to narrate stories, stories where I could recognize the characters. When my friends read the book, most of them suggested I consult an agent and so it all fell in place.”

After she started sharing the first two stories of The Red Carpet with literary agents, nine publishers got interested in the stories and they had to hold a three-day auction. Lavanya finally zeroed in on The Dial Press (Random House), one of the three highest bidders, and received a six-figure dollar deal.
It’s needless to say that all the nine publishers loved the quality of her writing as it "juggles both wit and compassion", providing a new glimpse into India "that they had not seen captured". One of them even mentioned: "It blows the lid off contemporary India."

She lives in Bangalore with her husband and teenage daughter.