Sayani De

Fiction & Essays on Memory, Identity, and Belonging

Sayani is a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction whose life and work traverse geographies, languages, and layered human experiences. An engineer with an MBA, she spent years in the tech industry, living and working across countries — experiences that deepened her reflections on gender, class, and inequality. Writing became her way of making sense of it all.

Raised in a home where books were as cherished as festive sweets, Sayani's love for language took root early. Storytelling, for her, is both refuge and resistance — a space where memory meets imagination. Her work has appeared / is forthcoming in many magazines including Consequences, Solar Punk, Tamarind, The Bangalore Review, and The Indian Literature. She has been longlisted for the 2025 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, Asian Prize for Short Story, and shortlisted for the Rama Mehta Writing Grant.

Based in Kolkata, she is currently working on her debut novel. A passionate traveler, she has explored 17 countries and often returns to the Himalayas, drawn by their stillness and stories.