Aanchal Malhotra is an Indian historian and writer, best known for her work on oral history and material culture of the

partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...

in 1947.

Biography

Malhotra was born in New Delhi in 1990. She received a BFA in traditional printmaking and art history from

Ontario College of Art & Design Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within do ...

, Toronto, where she won the University Medal and Sir Edmund Walker Award for Graduate Studies. She completed a MFA in Studio Art from

Concordia University Concordia University ( French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...

, Montréal. She belongs to the family of Bahrisons booksellers, founded by her paternal grandfather, Balraj Bahri in 1953 in New Delhi. She is also the co-founder of the Museum of Material Memory, a digital repository of material culture of the Indian subcontinent, tracing family history and social ethnography through heirlooms, collectibles and objects of antiquity.

Writing

Aanchal Malhotra's debut book, ''Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory'' was published by HarperCollins India in 2017, to mark the 70th anniversary of Indian independence. The project (under the same name) initially began as her MFA dissertation at Concordia University, Montréal, and includes field research in India, Pakistan and England. It is an attempt to revisit the Partition through personal and intimate objects that refugees carried with them across the border during their migration. Written as a crossover between history and anthropology, it details the material culture of the Partition of India. It was named A Hindustan Times 'India @ 70' book and shortlisted for the Shakti Bhatt First Book Award, Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay NIF Book Prize, and Hindu Lit for Life Non Fiction Prize. Outside the subcontinent, it was published under the title, ''Remnants of Partition: 21 Objects from a Continent Divided'' by Hurst Publishers in 2019. It was shortlisted by the British Academy for the 2019 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding. For the 75th anniversary of the Parition in 2022, Malhotra published a follow-up, ''In the Language of Remembering: The Inheritance of Parition'', which focused on the contemporary relevance of the Partition in the everyday lives of Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis. Her debut novel, '' The Book of Everlasting Things'', also published in 2022.

Biography

Writing

References

Further reading