Words That Remember: Tamil, Diaspora & Cultural Memory

Inbha is a Singaporean writer and poet who believes in making literature intuitive, inspired, and interactive, drawing deeply from human experiences—failures, suffering, resilience, and success. Her poetry, written in a style close to common speech, reflects the behaviors of individuals, societies, and nations. Her literary journey took flight when she won first prize in the National Arts Council Golden Point Award in 2009 for her short story. She won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2022 for her Tamil poetry collection. She has authored 5 poetry books, a short story collection, and a women’s poetry collection, and two compilations.

Niroshini Somasundaram is a Sri-Lankan born writer based in London. Her work examines themes of girlhood, gendered histories, and postcolonial and diasporic identity, with a particular focus on the experiences of Tamil women through both poetry and prose.

Her poetry pamphlet Darling Girl was published by Bad Betty Press in 2021. She received a London Writers Award in the literary fiction category and was awarded third place in the 2020 Poetry LondonPrize. Her work is also featured in Propel, South London Gallery Journal, adda stories, and Out of Sri Lanka (Bloodaxe Books, 2023). She is also a Ledbury Poetry Critic. She studied law, history, and languages at university before settling in the UK.

Shash Trevett is a poet, critic and a translator of Tamil poetry into English. Her poetry has been recorded for the Poetry Archive and she is a winner of a Northern Writers’ Award. Her collection The Naming of Names (Smith|Doorstop 2024) has been shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize 2025 and was longlisted for the Michael Murphy Prize. Out of Sri Lanka: Tamil, Sinhala and English Poetry from Sri Lanka and its Diasporas (Bloodaxe 2023, Penguin India 2023) which she co-edited with Vidyan Ravinthiran and Seni Seneviratne, was one of the Times Literary Supplement’s Books of the Year for 2023. Shash has been a mentor for both New Writing North and the National Centre for Writing, and a panelist for awards run by the Singapore Book Council, the Gratien Trust (Sri Lanka) and English PEN. She is a Ledbury Critic, reviewing for The Poetry Book Society and a Trustee of Modern Poetry in Translation.