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Megha Majumdar named NYPL's Cullman Center fellow
The fellows were selected from more than 800 applicants, including academics, independent scholars, novelists, playwrights and poets.
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Pranavi Sharma - Tue, 28, Apr 2026
- 02:05 EDT
- 13
Megha Majumdar / Megha Majumdar's website
Megha Majumdar has been named a fellow at The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, which selected 15 academics, nonfiction writers and creative writers for its 2026–2027 class.
The announcement was made April 27. The fellowship, now in its 28th year, supports projects that benefit from access to the Library’s research collections at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in New York City.
ALSO READ: Megha Majumdar to feature at PEN World Voices
Majumdar, an Indian novelist based in New York, is among three fiction writers chosen. The full class includes academics Doyle Calhoun, Marlene Daut, Alan Shane Dillingham and Hannah Farber; fiction writers Yaa Gyasi, Megha Majumdar and Alexander Sammartino; nonfiction writers Rebecca Donner, Kasim Kashgar, Eric Lach, Rachel Monroe and Ross Perlin; playwrights Viacheslav Komkov and Lauren Yee; and poet Nick Flynn.
The fellows were selected from more than 800 applicants, including academics, independent scholars, novelists, playwrights and poets.
“With projects that range from a biography of the Haitian president who agreed to pay France for his country’s independence, to a novel based on traditional Ghanaian folktales, to a play about a composer’s escape from the Soviet Union; this class of Cullman Center Fellows—chosen from the largest pool of applicants the Center has ever received—showcases the continuing vitality of research in the humanities,” said Salvatore Scibona, the Sue Ann and John Weinberg Director of the Cullman Center. He added, “At a time of retrenchment elsewhere in support for scholars and writers, the Library is expanding and celebrating it.”
The fellowship term runs from September 2026 through May 2027. Fellows receive a $90,000 stipend and a private office at the Cullman Center, along with access to the Library’s collections and staff support.
ALSO READ: Indian-origin scholars among 2026 Guggenheim fellows
Majumdar is the author of the novel “A Guardian and a Thief,” an Oprah’s Book Club selection and a finalist for the National Book Award and the Kirkus Prize. Her debut, “A Burning,” was a New York Times bestseller and received multiple honors, including the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar in 2021 and a Whiting Award in 2022. She was also awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2026.
At the Cullman Center, Majumdar will work on a novel about South Asian art on Broadway, centered on a Bengali playwright and director staging a production inspired by the friendship between poets W. B. Yeats and Rabindranath Tagore.
The Cullman Center also hosts “Conversations from the Cullman Center,” a public program series focused on fellows’ work during their residency.
Discover more at New India Abroad.
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