Tishani Doshi publishes poetry, fiction and essays. For fifteen years she worked as the lead dancer of the Chandralekha company in Madras, India, and as such, the body has been a central preoccupation in her work – a vehicle to explore gender, violence, sexuality and power, but also as an agent of renewal and transformation. Since her debut, Countries of the Body, which won the Forward Prize for best first collection (2006), she has sought to find joineries between the lyric and the political. Her works have been shortlisted for many prestigious international literary awards. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.