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Shayok Misha Chowdhury wins Whiting Award
Misha Chowdhury graduated from the Columbia University School of Arts
Shayok Misha Chowdhury / Image - Facebook
India-born Brooklyn-based playwright, Shayok Misha Chowdhury, received the Whiting Award, an annual award given to a group of ten emerging writers recognized in the fields of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
Misha Chowdhury was recognized in the drama category particularly for his bilingual debut play ‘Public Obscenities’ which follows a queer studies PhD student returning to his family home in Kolkata with his Black American boyfriend.
“Shayok Misha Chowdhury writes with ruthless splendor and inventiveness about the borders of language, sexuality, the public self and the hidden life,” the award’s selection committee said.
“He is a conjuror who manages to create highly theatrical work out of quotidian reality with a lightness of touch rarely seen on our stages. His debut play, written in Bangla and English, glows with allusion and homage but has its finger on the pulse of its moment.”
As part of the award Misha Chowdhury will receive a grant of $US50,000, one of the largest monetary gifts for early-career writers, from the Whiting Foundation.
An Obie Award-winning writer and director, Misha Chowdhury’s ‘Public Obscenities’ was a New York Times Critic’s Pick and named in The New Yorker’s Best Theatre of 2023. His other favorite projects include MukhAgni, a performance memoir, and Englandbashi, a short experimental film.
He is also a Sundance, Fulbright, and Kundiman Fellow, who has been awarded with the Princess Grace Award, the Mark O’Donnell Prize, a Jonathan Larson Grant, and the Relentless Award for his musical ‘How the White Girl Got Her Spots’ and ‘Other 90s Trivia.
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