Antonym Council for Global Arts and Literature is a non-profit organization founded in 2023 on a simple but radical belief: that literature and the arts are not static objects of heritage, but living, breathing forces of dialogue—forces that move between languages, cultures, geographies, and generations.
It is an ecosystem—one that brings together writers, translators, translation initiatives, residencies, publishing programs, and live literary encounters.
At its core, the Council works across three interconnected commitments:
- To translate and publish contemporary literary writing into English and other languages
- To support translation as a creative and collaborative act
- To create spaces—both physical and intellectual—where literature is experienced as dialogue
The Antonym Magazine (Online & Print)
At the heart of the Council’s activities lies The Antonym, our flagship literary magazine, published in both online and print editions.
The Antonym is committed to contemporary vernacular writing that is bold, diverse, and uncompromising. It publishes poetry, fiction, nonfiction, essays, interviews, and visual narratives from voices across the world—especially those writing from multilingual realities, or from places too often overlooked by mainstream literary circuits.
The online edition allows for immediacy and global accessibility.
The print edition, on the other hand, is intentional and archival. It is designed as an object to be held, revisited, annotated, and preserved.
Together, the online and print versions of The Antonym reflect the Council’s philosophy: that literature must be both rooted and mobile, both timely and timeless.
Translation Grants
Recognizing that translation requires not just passion but also time and resources, the Council offers translation grants to support literary projects across languages.
These grants are awarded to translators working on poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and hybrid forms—particularly works that might otherwise struggle to find institutional or commercial support.
River of Words 2025: A Recent Literary Event
One of the Council’s most recent and resonant initiatives is the literary event River of Words.
This event brought together writers, poets, translators, and thinkers to explore the metaphor—and reality—of the river: as language, as memory, as migration, as ecology, as time.
The Antonym Collections (Publishing Wing)
Extending the Council’s commitment to long-form is The Antonym Collections, its publishing wing.
The Antonym Collections publishes carefully curated books—poetry collections, translated works, anthologies, and critical texts—that require time, care, and editorial depth.
A Collective Vision
What unites all these initiatives—magazines, journals, workshops, grants, residencies, events, and books—is a shared vision:
- That literature is a space of ethical listening
- That translation is an act of imagination and responsibility
- That global does not mean homogeneous, but plural and relational
The Antonym Council does not seek to speak for the world, but to create platforms where the world can speak with itself.
Our Team
Biswadip Chakraborty - Director
Biswadip Chakraborty is an engineer, writer, restaurateur and travel enthusiast. He has four books of fiction in Bengali to his credit. He is also the founder and director of Antonym Collection and Antonym Council of Global Arts and Literature.
Dr. Chaiti Mitra - Director
Chaiti Mitra is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, Ramakrishna Sarada Mission Vivekananda Vidyabhavan College, Kolkata, and Guest Faculty at the Post Graduate Department of English, West Bengal State University. While her academic research interests include women’s writings and narratives of trauma and resistance, she has also been steadily nurturing her passion for translation. She is among the few translators to work on the complex narratives of Shyamol Gangopadhyay and Tilottama Majumdar. Her recent translated work, Chandaneswar Junction: And Other Stories, has been published by The Antonym Collection. She also writes on travel and gender issues in Bengali newspapers and journals, and has recently published her first book, Boudoir to Bibighar: The Memsahib and the 1857 Mutiny Narratives. In her spare time, she is an amateur actor, avid traveller and theatre enthusiast. Her Bengali translation of Hamlet is currently being staged by the well-known theatre group ‘Swapnasandhani’.
Kathakali Jana - Director
Kathakali Jana is the head of administration and events at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata. She also writes about the Arts in various mainstream and niche publications and engages with performing arts practitioners across genres. She wears yet another hat as a literary translator.
Biswajit Panda - Director
Biswajit Panda is presently an Associate Professor at Acharya Sukumar Sen Mahavidyalaya, Bardhaman. Mr Panda did his Ph. D. from Jadavpur University in 2008 and he was also a Senior Research Fellow in Research and Teaching at the same University.