The multiple award-winning author, journalist and speaker has had an eventful year. Aside from publishing articles, speaking at lit fests and debating on TV panels, the author published the bestselling book Feminist Rani (Penguin Random House, 2018). She won the Laadli Media Award (2018) for her writing on gender equality, her third award in as many years. She was featured in the Harper’s Bazaar ‘Hotlist’ of top female authors of 2018, and in Femina’s ‘Heroes of Act 2’.
Her short story Cows That Glow was longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (2018), one of the world’s biggest short story awards. Her short story Boongthing featured in Namita Gokhale’s anthology The Himalayan Arc and was effusively praised by all major publications. Pant was a mentor for Hilary Clinton’s initiative Vital Voices that promotes women empowerment. She was also one of the leading voices of the #MeToo movement, and chaired India’s first #MeToo conference in alliance with Firstpost.
Here’s what Grazia said, “If a singular individual could embody the notion of having it all, it’s Meghna Pant. A new mother, Pant has been a business news anchor, a TEDx speaker, and an activist, Oh, she’s also an award-winning author. It’s hard to believe that’s not what she’s been doing from the get-go.”
Says Pant, “I was doing everything that children growing up in the ‘80s were told to do — acquire collective degrees and hone your mathematical skills. Nobody asked you to be creative. And while I was immersed in the world of financial reportage, I felt like there was a gap in my life. I was a victim of domestic abuse, which was a wound that wouldn’t heal. So, writing for me is like a balm.”
While the author has published several successful books, her latest offering is Feminist Rani, an anthology of interviews from industry disruptors like Kalki Koechlin, Gul Panag and Aditi Mittal. “When we think about feminism, people always imagine angry women who hate men. But my brand of feminism doesn’t endorse women versus men, but women and men versus patriarchy that has been unjust to both. The book tries to dispel those stereotypes.”
Pant’s books - One & A Half Wife (Westland, 2012), Happy Birthday (Random House India, 2013), The Trouble with Women (Juggernaut, 2016) and Feminist Rani (Penguin India, 2018) have been published to commercial and critical acclaim. Her upcoming book How to get published in India (Bloomsbury) showcases a collection of interviews with Jeffrey Archer, Twinkle Khanna, Shobhaa De, Durjoy Datta, Ashwin Sanghi, Ravi Subramanian, Rashmi Bansal, Manil Suri, Kunal Basu, Namita Gokhale, Vikas Swarup, Meena Kandasamy and Preeti Shenoy, among others. The book is already receiving accolades.”
