Indian Women from Darkness to Light : Stories of Oppression, Exploitation, Reaction, Resistance and

Shoma A. Chatterji, based in Calcutta since 1995, is a noted author, freelance journalist and film critic writing for over 20 years. Her areas of specialization are cinema, gender, television, personalities, children human rights, literature and relationships. She conducts workshops on writing, journalism, and film appreciation in Mumbai and Kolkata several times a year. She won a commendation for her 'Outstanding Contribution to women's Issues' from the Eve's Weekly Woman Journalist Award in 1988; the National Award for Best Film Critic of the years in 1991; the Best Film Critic Award from the Bengal Film Journalists' Association i 1998 and National Award for the Best Book on cinema in 2003 for the book Parama and other outsiders-the Cinema of Aparna Sen. She is a postgraduate in Economics, Education and also holds a postgraduate diploma in Journalism from Mumbai's Somaiya Institute of Journalism and Mass Communication. She has presented papers at national and international seminars on cinema and gender and has been on the international jury at several international film festivals across Europe. She is a founder member of FIPRESCI-India, an international organisation of film critics based in Munich. She has authored four books on gender, four film biographies, two film analyses, three collections of short fiction in English and one collection of cinema articles in Bengali.