Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla

Photo Credit: Mike Allen

Los Angeles-based writer-director-producer, Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla was born in Mombasa, Kenya. His work has appeared in various national publications and he has been honored at MIT (2004), the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (2009), and as the distinguished guest of the prestigious Yale Master's Tea (2011). Dhalla's critically acclaimed debut novel, Ode to Lata, was hailed by The Los Angeles Times as "an achievement" and by Library Journal as "brilliant." In 2008, Ode to Lata was turned into the major motion picture The Ode, which was written, produced and co-directed by Dhalla. He was listed as one of the Top 21 Tastemakers and "Most Important Movers and Shakers" in America by Genre Magazine, the Hot 25 List by Frontiers (2007), and one of the "Voices of 2010" by India's leading LGBT magazine, Bombay Dost. A passionate activist, Dhalla also co-founded the South Asian program at the Asian Pacific Aids Intervention Team and is one of the founding members of Satrang, a support group for LGBT and questioning South Asians in Los Angeles. Dhalla is also a member of the Humanitas Prize organization, which recognizes excellence in TV and Film scripts. He has just completed his second film, Embrace, which is the first dramatization of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and is currently in post-production. The Two Krishnas (published as The Exiles by Harper Collins in India) is Dhalla's second novel and already an international bestseller.