Kavitha Iyer
Kavitha Iyer (2-21) is a Mumbai-based journalist. Her work has revolved around recounting the stories of those on the margins, from slum dwellers in India’s financial capital to indigenous farmers in remote villages. She has written extensively on India’s farm crisis, land rights, land reform, farmer suicides, distress migration and urbanization. Her first book, “Landscapes of Loss: The Story of an Indian Drought,” was published in February 2021 by HarperCollins India, with a foreword by Magsaysay awardee P. Sainath. She has been a grantee of the Earth Journalism Network and the Thakur Foundation. She edited “26/11 Stories of Strength” (Penguin, 2018), a compilation of accounts from victims of the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008, published to mark the 10-year anniversary of the attacks. Kavitha won a National Foundation for India fellowship to write on Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, and has mentored young journalists at The Indian Express newspaper.
While a fellow at the Logan Nonfiction Program, Kavitha will work on her second book (title forthcoming, HarperCollins India) which follows the long-term impacts of the forced exodus of migrant workers in India since the COVID-19 lockdown.