www.ThisIsTanuja.com
TANUJA DESAI HIDIER is an award-winning author/singer-songwriter. Her pioneering debut BORN CONFUSED — considered to be the first South Asian American YA novel — was named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults and became a landmark work, hailed by Entertainment Weekly, Rolling Stone Magazine, and Paste Magazine as one of the greatest YA novels of all time on lists including such classics as To Kill A Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Little Women, Harry Potter, and Huckleberry Finn.
To celebrate the book's recent 15th anniversary, the hashtag #BornConfused15 was launched for writers to chime in as to how the book opened doors for them.
Tanuja’s crossover/adult novel BOMBAY BLUES is recipient of the South Asia Book Award. It launched at the National Book Festival in Washington, DC (chaired by then President Barack and Michelle Obama) and the Zee/Jaipur Literature Festival in India.
Tanuja is also a songwriter/singer. WHEN WE WERE TWINS, her album of original songs based on Born Confused, was featured in Wired Magazine for being the first-ever “booktrack.”
The music video for “HEPTANESIA”, from Tanuja’s Bombay Blues ‘booktrack’ album BOMBAY SPLEEN was a BuzzPick on rotation at MTV Indies.
Tanuja recently produced and released the DEEP BLUE SHE #MUTINY2UNITY #METOO music video/remix/PSA: a grassroots women’s/LGBTQi/human rights and racial/gender equality project featuring more than 100 artist/activists, mostly women of color (including Anoushka Shankar on the remix as well as onscreen), original art, and real-news footage. A year in the making, the project was filmed by participants themselves, all over the world, on their phones, in an act of musical intersectionality. All artist proceeds from sales of the remix to rotating charities. Outlook Magazine calls the project “The ‘We Are The World’ of our times, with a desi edge.” “[Tanuja] is a writer, musician, and activist who works tirelessly building cultural bridges and bringing awareness about pressing issues relating to women at the intersections of race and class to the forefront,” says BookRiot.
Tanuja is currently at work on her next book/album/video.
www.ThisIsTanuja.com