Mridula Koshy


Mridula Susan Koshy is an Indian writer. She lives in New Delhi with her three children.

Professional life

Koshy was born in Delhi and migrated to the US in the 1980s, at the age of 15. She has worked as a cashier at a Kentucky Fried Chicken, swap-meet sales clerk, backstage dresser at fashion shows, waitress, polisher of silverware, writing adviser, a house painter, receptionist at a law firm, collator of tax forms, trade union organiser and community organiser.
She currently works as a librarian and community organiser with the , which runs a free community library for over 250 children from working-class families in the south Delhi neighbourhood of Sheikh Sarai. It has another branch in Sanjay Colony in Okhla.
Her collection of short stories, If It Is Sweet won the 2009 Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize and was shortlisted for the 2009 Vodafone Crossword Book Award.
Her first novel, Not Only the Things That Have Happened was shortlisted for the 2013 Crossword Book Award.
Koshy's books often explore the lives of Delhi's working class. Her latest novel Bicycle Dreaming focuses on family life in a waste worker community in Delhi. It follows a 13-year-old girl named Noor, who dreams of owning a bicycle and working as a kabadiwala like her father. However, the loss of his job forces him to work as a ragpicker, adversely affecting her family.
Her stories have appeared in literary journals including Wasafiri, Prairie Fire, The Dalhousie Review and Existere, as well as in anthologies in India, the United Kingdom and Italy.

Reviews