About the Conference

The Norman Cutler Conference on South Asian Literature (COSAL) honors the life and work of the late Norman Cutler (1949 – 2002), former Professor of Tamil in the Department. For a biography of Dr. Cutler, see this article from the University of Chicago Chronicle.

The purposes of the conference are:

• to create an expanded presence for South Asia in the fields of creative writing and comparative literature;
• to create an international forum for contemporary South Asian literatures;
• to encourage the interaction of scholars, translators, and U.S. readers generally, with South Asian writers.

This biennial event will feature different South Asian authors on each occasion of the Conference, who hail from various regions, write in various languages, and come from a diversity of communities.