INTERVIEWS
The Interviews
The Interview: Radhika Iyengar
Author of Fire on the Ganges
Rachna Singh, Editor, The Wise Owl talks to Radhika Iyengar, an Indian journalist, writer, and recipient of the 2018 Red Ink Awards in the category of Human Rights. She held the Prabha Dutt Fellowship in 2016, and was a writer-in-residence at Sangam House, Bengaluru through the assistance of the Bianca Pancoat Patton Fellowship in 2019, and was a recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust fellowship in 2020. Radhika has written for several news magazines including Al Jazeera, Atlas Obscura, Hyperallergic, Vogue India, Christian Science Monitor, Conde Nast Traveller India, among others. After eight years of research on the Dom community in Varanasi, she wrote Fire on the Ganges: Life among the dead in Banaras (2023), a book that has been critically acclaimed and nominated for several prestigious literary awards.
The Interview: Bianca Berends
A Dutch fine artist & Portrait Painter
Rachna Singh, Editor, The Wise Owl talks to Bianca Berends, a Dutch fine artist and portrait painter, recognized by The Portrait Society of America as one of today's leading artists and recently received a Certificate of Excellence for one of her portraits. Her work was part of the prestigious BP Portrait Award in 2004 in London. Her paintings have been exhibited in various well-known museums and galleries in Canada, Great Britain and The Netherlands. Reproductions of her portrait of the Dutch King Willem Alexander (2014) are part of the permanent collection of many governmental organizations in The Netherlands. She is recognised as one of the leading contemporary portrait artists in The Netherlands, various times featured in the Dutch media and in the book ‘Portraits of Portrait Artists’.