Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla

Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla
Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla
Born	5 June Mombasa, Kenya
Occupation	Writer/producer/director
Website
ghalibdhalla.com

Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla (Punjabi: غالب شیراز دھلا (Shahmukhi), ग़ालिब शिराज़ धल्ला (Devanagari)) born in Mombasa, Kenya, is a Los Angeles-based writer. He is most famous for his novel Ode to Lata published in 2002, that was adapted to a film in 2008 under the title The Ode. He has also published the novel The Two Krishnas in 2011, which was released as The Exiles in India.

At 13 years old, the aspiring young novelist published his first article on infertility in a national magazine VIVA. Since then he's written for various publications including Instinct, Genre, Angeleno, Detour and Details and is the Editor of the upscale lifestyle E-zine IndulgeMagazine.com

An excerpt from Ode to Lata was featured in the award-winning anthology Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America (Rutgers), which went on to win the 18th Annual American Book Award. The Los Angeles Times Book Review hailed Dhalla's debut as "an achievement" (Sunday, 24 March 2002) and Christopher Rice called it "a rare, great novel" (book jacket). Ode to Lata created milestones as the first South Asian gay novel ever to be reviewed by The Los Angeles Times and to be excerpted by Genre Magazine. It was also the first account of the South Asian gay experience from an author from the African continent. The cultural and academic impact of Dhalla's debut novel was further recognised when it was presented at the Between The Lines Festival at MIT (Boston) in 2004, and added to college syllabuses around the country like California State University.