Selma Carvalho
Founder-Editor
Selma Carvalho is a British-Asian writer and editor. She lives in London. She is represented by Naomi Barton at A Suitable Agency.
In Fiction
Her novellas have been shortlisted by Mslexia Novella Prize and the Weatherglass Novella Prize. Her debut novel Sisterhood of Swans (Speaking Tiger, 2021) was shortlisted for the Women Writers Prize (India), listed among six notable fiction books of 2021 by Asian Review of Books, and author Jerry Pinto’s top three reads of 2021 on India Today. Her second novella Notes on a Marriage was published by Speaking Tiger in 2024. A collection of her short stories was a finalist for the SI Leeds Literary Prize and is forthcoming from Speaking Tiger in 2027. Her unpublished novel All the Things we Cry for was longlisted for the Plaza Prizes (first chapters) and is represented by A Suitable Agency.
Thirty-five of her short stories and poems have been published by Kingston University Press, Aleph Books India, Pathian Books Wales, Mechanics Institute Review Birkbeck, Lighthouse Journal, Litro and Comma Press, among others. She has been listed or placed in 40 odd literary contests notably Fish, Bath, London Short Story, New Asian Writing, and winner of the Leicester Writes Prize. Her short-fiction has been translated into the Portuguese for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Portuguese Diaspora Studies, 2018.
in Non-Fiction
Her non-fiction book Guts, Glory & Empire: The Epic Story of Goans in Zanzibar, 1865-1810 was published by Speaking Tiger in 2026, recommended by The Hindu, Caravan, Scroll, Tribune and Himal South Asian as books to read in June. Her other non-fiction works include Into the Diaspora Wilderness (Goa 1556, 2010), A Railway Runs Through: Goans of British East Africa (HLF project, 2014) and Baker Butcher, Doctor Diplomat: Goan Pioneers of East Africa (2016), which document the Goan presence in colonial East Africa. Between 2011-2014, she headed the Oral Histories of British-Goans of East Africa project funded by a HLF UK grant and archived at the British Library and the Bexley Libraries. She curated the first-ever exhibition of East African Goan photographs at the Nehru Centre London, and her work appears in other South Asian exhibitions in the UK.
As Editor
She is the editor of three vols of The Brave New World of Goan Writing & Art (2018) (2020) & (2025), noted by The Hindustan Times as a definitive work of Goan writing, and The Naked Liberal: The Writings of George Menezes (2012) all published by Cinnamon Teal. She is the founding editor of the Joao Roque Literary Journal, which she has edited since 2017.
She was a long-time columnist for the newspapers oHeraldo and The Goan, and has been published in The Hindustan, the Deccan Herald, Readers Digest, Himal SouthAsian and The Indian Quarterly. Her work has been reviewed, recommended or featured in The Hindu, The Telegraph, Caravan, Outlook India, Scroll, Tribune and The Hindustan.