Professor’s work included in a select anthology by India’s National Academy of Letters

UDC Adjunct Professor Dr. Anita Nahal Arya, who teaches history and general education, is a two-time (2023 and 2024) Pushcart Prize-nominated Indian American author and poet who was recently featured in a published poetry anthology of Twenty Contemporary Indian English Poets called, “Mapping the Mind, Minding the Map.” 

The anthology was released by the Sahitya Akademi, also known as India’s National Academy of Letters.  The organization is dedicated to promoting literature in the languages of India. 

Arya, who publishes under the name Anita Nahal, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize this year. Conceived in the 1970s, the Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Press series highlights poetry and prose released by independent publishers each year. It is considered the most honored literary project in America. 

Readers can meet Arya on November 12 from 2-3 p.m. when she will host an author’s event for her novel at the Tysons-Pimmit Library located at 7584 Leesburg Pike in Falls Church, Va. 

Arya’s third poetry book, “What’s Wrong With Us Kali Women?” (Kelsay Books, 2021), is required reading for a multicultural course at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. Her debut novel, “Drenched Thoughts” (Authorspress, 2023) is also prescribed reading at the University.  

Arya was a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence, whose work is included in “The Polaris Trilogy,” an anthology that will be sent to the moon in the Space X launch. 

She has written one novel, four poetry books, a book of flash fiction, four children’s books, and five edited anthologies. Flash fiction is very short in length, consisting of only a few hundred words. 

Arya’s poems have appeared in various journals in Asia, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.  

She serves as the editor of the Poetry Society of Virginia’s newsletter and secretary of the Montgomery County chapter of the Maryland Writers Association.  

Arya has a personal connection to the Sahitya Akademi. Her late father, novelist and professor Dr. Chaman Nahal, won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1977. The award is the highest literary award in India and was given to Nahal for his novel “Azadi (Freedom)” about the partition of India in 1947. Though the title is Urdu, the novel was written in English and first published in the United States. Nahal’s novels are also a part of university courses in various parts of the world.