New Delhi, February 7, 2026 — Renowned writer and academician Malashri Lal, Convener of the English Advisory Board of the Sahitya Akademi, former Professor of English, and Dean of Colleges at the University of Delhi and the author of 26 books, will launch her much-anticipated second poetry collection, Signing in the Air, at the India International Centre (IIC), Max Mueller Marg, Lodhi Estate, New Delhi, on 11 February at 6:00 pm. The event will be held at the Seminar Halls,1st floor, Kamala Devi Complex, IIC, with tea and refreshments served from 5:30-6:00 pm. Entry to the programme is open on a walk-in basis.
After introductory remarks by the host, the Chief Librarian of IIC, the book will be discussed by the eminent speakers Namita Gokhale—writer, editor, and Festival Director of the Jaipur Literature Festival—and Rakhshanda Jalil, writer, translator, and anthologist. The session will be moderated by poet and publisher Kiriti Sengupta (Hawakal Publishers). The evening will also present a theatrical interpretation of select poems from Signing in the Air by celebrated NSD actor and theatre artiste Annu Priya.
Signing in the Air explores themes of imprint and erasure, climate anxiety, and mythic memory. The collection opens with a lyrical paean to India’s six seasons—shadowed by ecological loss—and journeys into reimagined narratives of Holika and Hidimba, foregrounding women’s voices with rare depth and restraint. In its five subsections the poems explore the paradoxes of continuity and resistance, social hierarchies, feminisms.
Writer and Academician Malashri Lal says, “In these poems I am trying to understand our illusion of signing our identity whereas we are all mortal and impermanent. Less ego and more compassion in society will change the violent, disrupted world we are living in. Women are the likely leaders of such positive change. India’s living mythology carries tales of the divine feminine, a radiant energy that is transformative. It is also the fountainhead of gender equality. My poetry delves into the origins and tugs restlessly at the modern crisis”.
Malashri Lal’s previous collection, Mandalas of Time, was nominated for the Rabindranath Tagore International Literary Prize 2025, reaffirming her position as one of India’s most vital poetic voices.
The event will be anchored by Meghna Chaudhary, creative consultant in brand strategy and communications.
Malashri Lal
Malashri Lal retired as a Professor of English at the University of Delhi, where she also served as Dean of Colleges and Dean of Academic Activities and Projects. A specialist in literature, women and gender studies, she has authored over 26 books, including The Law of the Threshold, Tagore and the Feminine, and the Goddess Trilogy on Sita, Radha and Lakhmi (co-edited with Namita Gokhale). The play Betrayed by Hope, co-written with Namita Gokhale, won the Kalinga Fiction Award (2021). Her acclaimed books of poetry are Mandalas of Time and Signing in the Air. As writer and critic, she has served on major literary juries and as Senior Consultant to the Ministry of Culture. She has received several awards for excellence in scholarship and writing, including the Maharani Gayatri Award, and the Ethos Award.
