Khyrunnisa A.

Khyrunnisa A. is an Indian author of children's fiction, speaker, academic and a columnist, who created the comic book character 'Butterfingers'. The character first appeared in the Indian children's magazine Tinkle. Thirteen-year-old Amar Kishen, aka Butterfingers, now features in the eponymous Butterfingers series of novels and short story collections published by Puffin, the children's imprint of Penguin Random House India. Her first book for adults came out on 31 July 2019. Titled Tongue in Cheek: The Funny Side of Life, the book, which is a humorous take on the experiences of a modern urban woman, has been published by Westland. Her book of animal stories for young readers titled The Lizard of Oz and Other Stories, published by Scholastic, appeared at the same time. Another book of animal stories, The Crocodile Who Ate Butter Chicken For Breakfast and Other Stories, was published by Red Panda, the children?s imprint of Westland, on August 17, 2020. Shashi Tharoor had this to say about the book, 'Khyrunnisa's oeuvre now has some unique and lovely animal stories giving it the resonance of a Panchatantra for the contemporary world.' In February 2021, Baby and Dubdub, a warm and funny novella about the relationship between a boy, a dog and a baby, was published by Talking Cub, the children's imprint of Speaking Tiger. Khyrunnisa's first three children's novels Howzzat Butterfingers! (2010), Goal, Butterfingers! (2012) and Clean Bowled, Butterfingers! (2015), were followed by three collections of short stories, The Misadventures of Butterfingers (2016), Run, It's Butterfingers Again! (2017) and Of Course It?s Butterfingers! (2018). All the Butterfingers books were launched by Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament. Smash It, Butterfingers! a rollicking badminton-based novel and the seventh in the Butterfingers series, came out in July 2021. This book was longlisted for the JK Paper and Times of India Auther Awards 2022 in the Children?s Literature category and also featured in Times of India?s top ten books for children 2021. A book of her prize-winning stories, Lost in Ooty and Other Adventure Stories, was brought out by Unisun Publications in 2010. Some of her stories for children and for adults have appeared in anthologies published by Puffin, Children's Book Trust, Talking Cub and Unisun Publications. She writes stories regularly for the children's magazine, Dimdima, a Bhavan's publication. ?Butterfingers,? Khyrunnisa's entry for the Annual All India Tinkle Short story competition for adult writers of children's fiction in 1996, won her the second prize.[8] She went on to win the first prize at the competition for the next seven consecutive years ? from 1997?2003. In 2007, she won the prestigious Unisun Children's Fiction Award. She also has five Children's Book Trust prizes to her credit.