INDIA IS ALL THE RAGE THESE DAYS. Especially in literary circles.

This year’s Booker Prize went to the Indian author of “White Tiger,” and the year’s big movie, “Slumdog Millionaire,” started out as a novel. This cultural surge is not exactly new—it started in earnest with Jhumpa Lahiri’s 2000 runaway bestseller “Interpreter of Maladies.” Who better to headline this week’s South Asian Women’s Creative Collective Literary Festival than Jhumpa Lahiri herself?

Taking place March 6 and 7, the sixth annual fest will celebrate South Asian writing that explores “love between strangers and love that is strange.” In addition to Lahiri, readings and talks around New York will feature Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Meena Alexander, Abha Dawesar, Farzana Doctor, V.V. Ganeshananthan, Minal Hajatwala, S. Mitra Kalita, Pooja Makhijani, Suketu Mehta, Yesha Naik, Amy Paul, Chandra Prashad, Bushra Rehman, Zohra Saed, Purvi Shah, and Svati Shah.

Expect to have your mind blown and your heart touched by poetry, memoir, travelogue, and fiction that evoke “accidental encounters and provocative attractions” from guerilla wars in Sri Lanka to the suburbs of New Jersey. Maybe you’ll fall in love with the next Lahiri.

For full schedule and details, visit the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective events page. •