ABOUT TANUJA DESAI HIDIER
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Tanuja Desai Hidier is an award-winning author/singer-songwriter. Her pioneering debut
BORN CONFUSED—the first South Asian American YA novel—was named an American
Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, hailed by Entertainment Weekly, Rolling
Stone Magazine, and Paste as one
of the greatest YA novels of all time (on lists including classics e.g. To Kill A Mockingbird, Catcher in the Rye,
Little Women, Harry Potter, Huckleberry Finn). Sequel BOMBAY BLUES received
the South Asia Book Award and is being made into a series.Tanuja’s
album WHEN WE WERE TWINS (based on Born Confused) was featured in Wired (as the
first ‘booktrack’). Music video “HEPTANESIA” (from booktrack BOMBAY SPLEEN) was
an MTV Indies BuzzPick.Tanuja
produced the DEEP BLUE SHE #MUTINY2UNITY #METOO music video/PSA: an
award-winning intersectionality project featuring 100+ artist/activists
(proceeds to charity; “the ‘We Are The World’ of our times” —Outlook). It received the 2018 London
Film Awards Gold Lion Award, was a DCSAFF selection, and featured on the BBC.She
is working on her next book/album.“A
writer, musician, and activist who works tirelessly building cultural bridges
and bringing awareness about pressing issues relating to women at the
intersections of race and class to the forefront.” —BookRiot
ARTIST STATEMENT
Hello! I’m an author/musician. The beating heart of all of my work is the centering and celebration of girls/women/queer communities/people of colour. Of survivors. And art/music/freedom of expression’s joyful role in it. And my hope—both on page and off—is to work with language to continue shining a light on our universals, keep bringing the margins to the page. Keep writing /revising our own myths of self into new realities: WE can be heroes. SHEroes. Thank you for including me in this wonderful space.
