Hidden in Plain Sight: Writing Women into History
Event Date: 17 January 2026
Event Time: 8 p.m. IST/ 6.30 a.m. PT
Event Address: Zoom
Contact us at aclisa.contact@gmail.com
Registration
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScWgtccpmEwPUKdJ1Xfo1DyIRKFlO6UPhWtMzuXrB3Hv_CIsg/viewform
About the Author
Dr. Devika Rangachari is an award-winning Indian writer whose Queen of Ice was on the White Raven list, won the Neev Young Adult Book Award, was shortlisted for the Bal Sahitya Puraskar, has been optioned for a movie and is part of the Penguin Classics series. Her other books include Queen of Water, Queen of Fire (Parag Honour List 2022); Queen of Earth (Parag Honour List 2021; shortlisted for the Neev YA and JK Women AutHer awards); and The Train to Tanjore (shortlisted for the Neev award). Devika also writes narrative non-fiction for adults based on her doctoral and post-doctoral research on gender in Indian history.
Talk Abstract
Women are usually seen as irrelevant to the reconstruction of the past even though the historical evidence available to us claims otherwise. My training as a gender historian made me aware of powerful women in the Indian past who had a huge influence on the polity, society, economy and religion of their times but who are, invariably, lumped together as an
undifferentiated group with generalisations made about their role and status through time.
My Queen series of historical fiction for young adults foregrounds some of these remarkable women. Using historical sources, such as texts, coins and inscriptions, it attempts to reintegrate these figures into the narrative of our past, underlining the fact that a male-centred view of history is lopsided and incomplete—and that these women simply cannot be invisibilised. I will talk about the books in this series and the manner in which my training as a historian has informed my writing.
