Welcome

A native of India, Lalita Noronha came to the US on a Fulbright travel grant and earned her Ph.D. in microbiology. She is a widely published scientist, poet and fiction writer. Where Monsoons Cry is her debut collection of short stories. She has twice won the Maryland Literary Short Story Award (1997, 2001) a Maryland Individual Artist Award (2002,) the National League of American Pen Women and other Awards. Currently working on a novel, she is a fiction editor for the Baltimore Review, and a science teacher at St. Paul’s School for Girls. Using stories from her book, she has also designed a lecture series highlighting the Culture of India.

To read Testimonials about Lalita's Course, click here.

What People Are Saying

“To describe Lalita Noronha as an advocate for India is to describe Dwight Eisenhower as a former university president. Noronha has a Ph.D. in microbiology and teaches science. She is also one of Maryland's top fiction writers.”                --James H. Bready, The Baltimore Sun

“A beautiful, Heartbreaking Collection of Stories from a gifted new writer. Bravo to Lalita Noronha.” —Sujata Massey, author of The Samurai’s Daughter

“Where Monsoons Cry sails the stormy sea of expectations and relations like a Bombay version of John Updike.”           –Richard Peabody, Gargoyle Magazine

“Where Monsoons Cry can be read as a novel. With tough intelligence and lyric grace, Noronha explores the hurts of history, migrant moments of dislocation....A writer of haunting presence and subtle surprises.”  

J. BirjePatil, author of Chinnery's Hotel

“Noronha serves up elaborate dances between the protagonists with an economy of words that shimmy off the page. These stories offer a refreshing tribute to the most powerful human emotions that course through our lives.” 

               -- Rohit K. Shukla,CEO, LARTA Institute

“Noronha captures the disconnect and longing of the immigrant, and given we live in a land of immigrants, this book has a resonance for all who made the hard bargain between staying and leaving.”

               --Susan McCallum-Smith, Urbanite

 “Lalita Noronha, who has a Ph.D. in microbiology, can be said to have a “talent” for science. With her first collection of short stories Where Monsoons Cry, she can be said to have a talent for fiction too. Amazingly, in addition to being a scientist, she is also a writer — a rather good one, too.”
               --Michelle Reale, India Currents

Read Excerpts from Where Monsoons Cry :

" This Is America "
" The Sari "

Listen to stories and interviews on Radio---

NPR Reading The Signal, March 2, 2007

NPR Reading..The Signal, Oct.3, 2008

Urbanite----Audio Interview for The Urbanite Project, 2007

To read some of Lalita's POETRY, click here

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