NEW: Bollywood's Shah to Make 1st Hollywood Pic
Los Angeles-based writer Ghalib
Shiraz Dhalla was born in Mombasa, Kenya where at age 5 he discovered his true
calling and attempted to write his first novel. At 13 years old, he published
his first article in a national Kenyan magazine, Viva. Since then he has
written for various publications including Genre, Angeleno, Detour, In Los
Angeles and Details and publishes the luxury online magazine,
IndulgeMagazine.com
He is the author of the critically acclaimed, semi-autobiographical novel Ode
to Lata, hailed by The Los Angeles Times as “an accomplishment” and
by the Library Journal as “brilliant.” An excerpt from Ode to Lata
first appeared in the American Book Award winning anthology Contours of the
Heart and the novel has set milestones as the first gay South Asian novel to
be excerpted in Genre Magazine and featured in The Los Angeles Times
Book Review. The cultural and academic impact of Dhalla’s debut novel was
further recognized when it was presented at the Between the Lines Festival at
MIT (Boston) in 2004 and added to college syllabuses around the country.
Dhalla first started to write Ode to Lata as a series of vignettes. He
was inspired by his love of Bollywood film music (especially the playback
singing of renowned Lata Mangeshkar) and his desire to understand issues closest
to his heart - the complexities of familial ties, the Indian diaspora and how
art is the ultimate director of our pathos. The novel freely moves back and
forth between time and continents, painting a compelling picture of love and
longing across three generations. Dhalla co-scripted and Associate-produced the
film adaptation (The Ode).
His forthcoming novel, The Two Krishnas, treads into the heart of
adultery and spans three continents (India, Africa, America) as we journey
through the first Indian settlers in colonial Africa, the heat and roil of
modern Mumbai, and the dislocation of post 9/11 Los Angeles. Weaving Hindu
mythology and Sufism richly through the non-linear four-part novel, Dhalla
paints a picture of passion and longing through the archetypal characters of a
betrayed wife, faithless husband and marginalized lover to show how the past is
always present no matter how far we run and how the secrets we guard are the
ones that destroy us in the end.
A passionate activist, he co-founded the South Asian program for AIDS
intervention at the Asian Pacific Aids Intervention Team in Los Angeles and was
one of the founding members of Satrang, a support organization for ‘questioning’
and ‘out’ South Asians in Southern California.
In June 2007, Dhalla was listed as one of the Top 21 Tastemakers and “Most
Important Movers and Shakers” in America by Genre Magazine. In August
2007, he was honored on the Hot 25 List by Frontiers.