Veena Gokhale

My childhood passion for reading and writing stories led to a career in the mercurial world of Bombay journalism in the 1980s.

A journalism fellowship brought me to Canada in 1990. I knew nothing about the country, but I was smitten, and returned to do a Master’s in Environmental Studies. I loved living in Toronto. It was here that I started working on a manuscript that became Bombay Wali and other stories (Guernica Editions, 2013).

After graduation, I worked in communications for non-profits. This took me to Tanzania on a two-year working stint, partly inspiring my novel, Land for Fatimah (Guernica Editions, 2018).

Returning to Canada, we moved to Montreal. (I live a stone’s throw from the bridge you see in the photo!) Here, in my French-Canadian partner’s city, I started publishing my work in literary magazines and anthologies and also wrote book reviews and articles on the arts. Happily, I found community in the inspiring world of Montreal writers.

In 2015, my life took an unexpected turn: I started giving Indian vegetarian cooking classes. Given my passion for narrative, I sought out food legends and did some storytelling around this theme, eventually getting a grant to write Annapurna’s Bounty, Indian Food Legends Retold.

Since 2021, I have been curating the Garden of Literary Delights (GOLD). It’s an annual event highlighting the work of Canadian writers of South Asian origin. Sponsored by the Kabir Cultural Centre, a pluralistic arts organization based in Montreal, this intergenerational event features writers across various literary genres.

From portraits of life in Bombay, to weaving a narrative around a friendship between a landless farmer and a woman who works for a non-profit, and their struggle to find farming land in Africa (the novel), to reimagining legends for contemporary times, I keep exploring and learning.

I also work as an ESL teacher, delighting in yet another link with language.