SALIDAA is a charitable trust (charity No 1081584) and is managed by a voluntary Board of Trustees:

Rukhsana Ahmad is writer, translator and playwright. She co-founded Kali Theatre Company with Rita Wolf in 1990 and was Artistic Director from 1994 to November 2002. She has written several stage and radio plays, some of which have been short-listed for awards. Her most recent play, River on Fire , was short-listed for the Susan Blackburn Smith award 2001. Rukhsana has translated and edited contemporary Urdu poetry, We Sinful Women (Women’s Press, 1990), and fiction, The One Who Did Not Ask by Altaf Fatima. Her short stories appear in various collections and her novel, The Hope Chest , was published by Virago in 1996. Rukhsana was Royal Literary Fellow at Queen Mary College, University of London in 2003/04.

Ranjana Sidhanta Ash is a freelance lecturer and writer of South Asian literatures. She was one of the founders of the National Council for Mothertongue Education as an advocate of multi-cultural education embracing multilingualism. She then went on to found South Asian Literature Society in 1982 and has been a keen advocate of the translations of South Asian literatures into English. She was a consultant editor of the Heinemann Asian series - eight titles of fiction in translation from South Asian languages.

Richard Bingle is a historian and archivist. He worked as an archivist for 30 years at the India Office Library and Records until he retired in 1995. He was curator of the collection of European Manuscripts (private papers). He has served on the Records Preservation Committee of the British Records Association and the British Standards Committee on the preservation and exhibition of archives and as Secretary of the British in India Oral Archives Committee. At present he is a board member of the European Association for South Asian studies and on the Executive Committee of the British Association for South Asian Studies. He has published numerous articles and reviews on Indian history and archives.

Shehzad Charania: biographical information soon to be added.

Rahila Gupta is a writer and activist. She has been on the management committee of Southall Black Sisters since 1989 and is currently a writer in residence at Bromley-by-Bow Centre. She has written radio drama, short stories and poetry. Her filmscript, Circle of Light , has been commissioned by Kali Films. She recently edited a collection of political essays, From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers , which was published in December 2003. She is also currently writing a play on the ethical issues raised by advances in biomedical science, commissioned by Y-Touring theatre company.

Lakshmi Holmström is a critic, translator and freelance writer. Lakshmi has translated extensively from modern Tamil fiction into English and edited two collections of modern Indian short fiction, The Inner Courtyard: Stories by Indian Women (Virago, 1990) and Writing from India with Mike Hayhoe (Cambridge University Press, 1994). She has also retold, in English, two 5th century Tamil narrative poems. Her critical articles and reviews have appeared in journals in India, Europe, United States, and England. She has been guest lecturer at successive Open University summer schools and has been invited to give lectures and workshops at different universities in England, Europe and India.

Bhajan Hunjan biographical information soon to be added.

Susheila Nasta is Reader in Literature at the Open University and founding editor of the international literary magazine, Wasafiri . She has published and lectured widely in the field of contemporary twentieth century literatures, particularly on the Caribbean, postcolonial women’s writing and the fictions of the black and South Asian diasporas. Her early publications include a collection of critical essays on Sam Selvon as well as a critical anthology on women’s writing from Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean and Britain, Motherlands (Womens Press, 1991; Rutgers 1992). Her most recent monograph is Home Truths: Fictions of the South Asian Diaspora in Britain (Palgrave, 2002). She has edited Writing Across Worlds: Contemporary Writers Talk (Routledge, 2004) and her monograph on Jamaica Kincaid, Writing a Life , is forthcoming.

Sukhdev Sandhu is the author of London Calling: How Black and Asian Writers Imagined A City , and writes regularly for the London Review of Books , Modern Painters and New Statesman.

Rozina Visram is a historian, educationalist and writer. She was Head of History at Eltham Green School, Deputy Director at the ILEA Centre for Urban Education and advisory teacher for History. She has worked as a consultant on a number of museum projects and was Visiting Lecturer on South Asian History at the University of North London. Among her publications are: Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: Indians in Britain 1700-1947 (Pluto, 1986) and the more recent Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (Pluto, 2002) as well as a number of books for schools on Asian history.

Kamila Zahno biographical information soon to be added

SALIDAA is also supported by a wide ranging Board of Advisors who are practitioners or experts in the different art forms covered by the archive, including: Aamer Hussein (writer and critic), Abdul Malik-Ahad (British Bangladeshi Cultural Centre), Shaheen Merali (visual artist); Alnoor Mitha (Shisha, international agency for contemporary South Asian crafts and visual arts), Divia Patel (Curator, Victoria & Albert Museum); Mykaell Riley (University of Westminster and BMET); Ashwani Sharma (University of East London)