Almost Island held its second reading in its Readings and Reflections Series on Oct. 2, 2021 with contemporary poets from Zimbabwe, curated by Togara Muzanenhamo. The poets reading were Tariro Ndoro, Tendekai Tati, Iz Mazano, Batsirai Chigama, and Tsitsi Jaji.

In April 2021, Almost Island began its first online event, the first in a series called Readings and Reflections.

Two younger poets, Sohini Basak, and Arun Sagar read from their work, followed by a question and answer session.

The 13th Almost Island Dialogues were held in Bangalore, at the Bangalore International Centre, 6–8 December 2019. The participants were South African novelist Zoe Wicomb, Zimbabwean poet Togara Muzanenhamo, American poet Michael Kelleher, Bengali poet Joy Goswami, novelist and poet Irwin Allan Sealy, Kannada fiction writer Vivek Shanbag, Kannada lyricist, poet and fiction writer Jayant Kaikini, and Sharmistha Mohanty. Over the three days there were morning discussions and evening readings at the Bangalore International Centre auditorium.

Blind Screens by Ranjani Murali, published by us, won the Prabha Khaitan Woman’s Voice Award in January 2019. The award was announced at the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival.

In December 2018, Almost Island held its eleventh Dialogues at the India International Centre in New Delhi. This one was centred around poetry, and the participants were South African poet Ari Sitas, Bengali poet Subhro Bandhopadhyay, Indian-English poet Mani Rao, Vivek Narayanan and Sharmistha Mohanty.

In December of 2017 Almost Island celebrated a decade of work. At the Dialogues in December were Chinese poet Bei Dao, Moroccan poets Mohammed Bennis, Argentinian writer Sergio Chejfec, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Joy Goswami, I. Allan Sealy, Mangalesh Dabral and of course the Almost Island team of Sharmistha Mohanty, Vivek Narayanan and Rahul Soni. They were also joined by Chejfec’s translator Margaret Carson and literature scholars and professors Jared Stark and Emily Sun. The Dialogues were also the occasion for the release of Almost Island’s newest book, Baroni: A Journey, by Sergio Chejfec.

Earlier in the year saw the publication of Blind Screens by Ranjani Murali, winner the Almost Island Manuscript Competition held in 2016.

The Almost Island Dialogues 2015 had the great Chilean poet Raúl Zurita with his translator Anna Deeny Morales, Joy Goswami, K. Satchidanandan, Kutti Revathy, and a performance by Parvathy Baul with Bahauddin Dagar.

The 7th Almost Island Dialogues was held in December, 2013 at the India International Centre in Delhi.

The Dialogues were as intimate and intense as always. The great Hungarian writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai spoke of his life and work, as did the excellent Chinese poet Xi Chuan. Indian poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra spoke of his journey as a poet, and American prose writer Renee Gladman presented a talk on the relationship between the labyrinth of the mind and the sentence that expresses it. In the evenings there were readings by all the above writers as well as Sharmistha Mohanty, Vivek Narayanan, and Rahul Soni.

Almost Island has published two new titles: A new work of fiction by Sharmistha Mohanty, Five Movements in Praise, and the seminal Hindi poet Srikant Verma’s masterpiece Magadh, in a deft translation by Rahul Soni.

Both books are available at select bookstores and at Flipkart and other online stores.

Almost Island is pleased to announce the publication of its first book, Adil Jussawalla’s new collection of poems, Trying to Say Goodbye. In the future we will continue to publish one or two books a year, of poetry and prose.

In December, 2011, Almost Island-Jintian held the third chapter of the India-China dialogues in Mumbai. There were closed door discussions in the day, and readings in the evenings, followed by a public discussion, The Scope and Limits of Dissent. The new participants in these dialogues were Han Shaogong, the Chinese novelist, and Adil Jussawalla, the poet. Otherwise, the same group reconvened—from the Chinese side, Bei Dao, Ouyang Jianghe, Xi Chuan, Li Tuo, Lydia Liu, Ge Fei, and interpreters Yurou Zhong and Wang Yan. From the Indian side I. Allan Sealy, K. Stachidanandan, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Vivek Narayanan and Sharmistha Mohanty, and Ashis Nandy.

Discussions centred around autobiographies of some participating writers, the impact of Chinese classical poetry on contemporary Chinese literature, Tagore's relevance in India today through a discussion of his text The Essence of Words, as well as a discussion led by Ashis Nandy on the change in these two countries, and some frames through which to view those changes.

Almost Island feels a profound loss at the death of Mani Kaul, one of India's most inventive and courageous film directors. The loss is more sharp as Kaul was on the board of Almost Island, was a great supporter, and had also participated in several of the Dialogues. His support came not only directly, but also through the way he had always lived his artistic life, never bending to the market, and continuing to engage at the deepest place with his own medium, and with the music he had mastered enough to teach, dhrupad.

For those who had been close to Mani Kaul, it is difficult to make him the subject - of a newspaper article, an obituary, a talk. His visions, for they are overwhelmingly various, have infused our work as writers, cinematographers, directors, musicians, actors, they have infused our ways of seeing. I worked with Kaul on his feature film “Nazar”, (The Gaze, 1989), for which I wrote the screenplay. Perhaps it was chance that this was the film through which my friendship and learning with him began, because it is above all his gaze that was profound. Read this tribute by Sharmistha Mohanty at The Caravan.

In May 2010, the India-China Dialogues entered its second phase in Beijing and Shanghai, where Indian and Chinese writers met once again, continuing and renewing the discussions that had begun in New Delhi in 2009. Some of the new Chinese writers who joined in were novelist Yu Hua, poet and critic Tang Xiaodu, fiction writer Sun Ganlu, and Lydia Liu, scholar of Chinese literature and culture.

From India, besides the participating writers, the Dialogues were enriched by the presence of Dhrupad musician Bahauddin Dagar, and video artist Kabir Mohanty, who performed and showed their work.

A report on these Dialogues, excerpts from the work of the Indian writers, as well as texts on the China visit by I. Allan Sealy, Sharmistha Mohanty and Vivek Narayanan has appeared in the October 2010 issue of Jintian, edited by Bei Dao.

The Almost Island Dialogues: Four, was held in March 2010, once again, in New Delhi, at the India International Centre. Participating writers were the Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun, Caribbean-Indian poet Vahni Capildeo, prose writer and translator Eliot Weinberger, Hong Kong fiction writer Xu Xi, Bengali poet Joy Goswami, Tamil fiction writer Charu Nivedita, Bengali novelist and poet Anita Agnihotri, as well as Vivek Narayanan, and Sharmistha Mohanty. Ashis Nandy was also present. Vahni Capildeo's three part essay on the Dialogues, "Questions of Approach", can be found in the Caribbean Review of Books.

Almost Island has begun a reading series in Mumbai, along with the arts foundation Jnanapravaha, beginning February 2009. There have been readings by Bei Dao, Anne Waldman, I. Allan Sealy, Adil Jussawalla, and Vahni Capildeo. These readings were followed by conversations with the writer.

The Almost Island Dialogues: Three, was held in New Delhi's India International Centre, from Feb. 12-15, 2009. This was an unusual, and indeed, historical dialogue between writers from China and India. Said K. Satchidanandan, "The interactions we have with our Chinese counterparts in a formal setting are organised by our governments. We seldom see the real contemporary face of Chinese literature because writers who are not spokespersons of the state are seldom part of their official delegation." He said he considers the Almost Island Dialogues to be "India's first unofficial yet formal literary meet between India and China". "This is not a discussion between two countries but an encounter between two civilizations," said Ashis Nandy.

The idea was proposed by Chinese poet Bei Dao. Over a year, these dialogues were planned by him and Sharmistha Mohanty – the writers who would participate, and the kinds of discussions that could be made possible. The Chinese writers, each one outstanding, were Ge Fei, a novelist, poets Xi Chuan, Ouyang Jianghe, Zhai Yongming, the critic Li Tuo, and Bei Dao. They are all associated with Jintian (Today) a leading literature journal, established by Bei Dao and others in 1978--the first non-official literary magazine in China since the 1950s. The Indian writers were Kunwar Narain, K. Stachidanandan, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Vinod Kumar Shukla, Joy Goswami, Irwin Allan Sealy, Vivek Narayanan, and Sharmistha Mohanty. They were joined by Ashis Nandy, who chaired two of the three discussion sessions. The evening readings were, as always, bilingual. This time one heard Chinese, Bengali, Hindi, English and Malayalam.

In March of 2008 Almost Island had three days of writers dialogues and readings, Almost Island Dialogues: Two, at the India International Centre in New Delhi. The participating writers were the Italian writer Claudio Magris, the British poet George Szirtes, the Chinese poet in exile, Bei Dao, Indian writers Irwin Allan Sealy, Udayan Vajpeyi, Nabaneeta Dev Sen, Vivek Narayanan and Sharmistha Mohanty.

The discussions centred around issues in poetry and prose, and included two exclusive sessions: one on the work of Bei Dao, the other on the work of Claudio Magris. The evening readings, held outdoors on the lawns bordering Lodi Gardens, were bilingual where so required.

The audience for the discussions came from a variety of backgrounds:students, musicians, literary theorists, filmmakers, and of course, writers. They had been given, a month prior, some books by the participating writers, so as to make the discussions more full and rigourous.

Here is what George Szirtes had to say about the Dialogues on his website… (click to read an extract from his post).

The first Almost Island Dialogues was held in December 2006, at New Delhi's India International Centre. The writers were George Szirtes, Allan Sealy, Vinod Kumar Shukla, K. Satchidanandan, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Vivek Narayanan, Sharmistha Mohanty, and the filmmaker Mani Kaul. Discussions included the interaction of poetry and fiction, and the idea of narrative and perspective. In one session the writers spoke about work had that has been seminal in their own practice.