Erika is currently writing a novel. She is also putting together a collection of her short stories.
2023
Long listed for the Fish Short Story prize and short listed for the Plaza Short Story prize
Erika’s short story ‘She Came To Stay’ has been included in an anthology of short fiction, ‘Same Same but Different’, published by Everything With Words, 2021.
Erika is one of the top ten highly Commended writers for the 2020 Bridport Prize, long long listed for the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize and Shortlisted for the 2020 Bristol Short Story Prize. In 2019 she was one of the top sixty writers in the BBC Short Story Award. In 2018 Erika was long listed for the Royal Society of Literature V.S Pritchett Memorial Short Story Prize, the London Short Story Prize and she was on the list of Honourable mentions in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition.
She was long listed for the Bath Novel Award in 2016. Erika was runners up in the Mslexia short story competition 2012.
Published Short Stories:
‘Marvellous Real’ published in The Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology, 2020.
Shortlisted for the 2020 Bristol Short Story Prize
‘There were guests expected at the apartment on Kabir Road, but that would not be until evening. Gopal, the nine-year-old houseboy knew he was by himself for the next three hours while the Mitra family were at the Tolly Club. So, he sat with his feet up on the green velvet couch in the living room and thought about how he might use his time alone. The washing up and dusting could wait.’
‘She Came to Stay’ published in The Bridport Short Story Prize Anthology, 2020 and ‘Same Same But Different’An Anthology of Short Stories, 2021
Highly Commended for the 2020 Bridport Prize.
‘A luminous tale about a lodger’s impact on an Indian family.’ Angela Readman in London Review Bookshop, October 2021
‘In September 1974, a year after we moved from Kolkata to England, Ruby Miller came to stay as our lodger in the attic room of the house we rented on Maple Drive. My mother hated the idea of a stranger in our home but my father insisted.
‘There is no other way to earn some extra money,’ he said and his word was as always, final.’
‘Miss Edith Comes to Tea’: published in The Asia Literary Review, 2019.
'Edith Williams didn’t like change. At 9:25 a.m., on a Friday in April, she put a chair by the front window and peered through a gap in her net curtains to keep an eye on the removal van parked in front of her lawn. To be sure she wouldn’t miss a moment of the arrival of her new neighbours, Edith filled a flask with hot tea and moved the small electric heater nearer her feet.'
‘First Time Ever’ published in the Spread The Word London Short Story Anthology, 2018.
Longlisted for the London Short Story Prize 2018
‘The format of the radio show was simple. At seven thirty every Friday morning, five minutes of the breakfast show was given over to the children. The host of the show asked, ‘What amazing thing have you done for the first time ever?’
‘Mrs. Luthra’s Stove’ published in MsLexia Magazine Issue 54, 2012.
Runner’s Up in the Mslexia Short Story Competition 2012
'I first heard about the custom of dowry from my Hindi teacher. Her name was Malika Puri and when she joined my school she couldn't have been older than 22 or 23 and was slim and petite and rather reticent with us, her pupils in year seven.'
‘The Chair’: published in Wasafiri: A Magazine of International Writing, Autumn 2011 issue.
'Finally, they carried him down in the armchair, the one that sat at the head of the teak dining table. It was an old chair, tired and scratched, and the red and blue silk fabric of the seat looked dull and frayed. In this nondescript third floor flat which looked upon nothing but a dry patch of grass, the chair seemed to have given up trying to find the niche where it rightfully belonged, but then nothing here seemed to fit in anymore.'
‘Jamun Reverie’: published in The Little Magazine, Volume iii, issue 1, 2002.
''Jaamani kale, kale jaam"
The dulcet voice of the kala jamun seller echoed through the afternoon hush. Not a whisper from a bird or a rustle from the coconut trees disturbed the slumber of the summer afternoon. Doors and windows were shuttered, dogs panted in the shade. The kala jamun man took his usual route winding through the sweltering alleys, past the green waters of the village pond hoping that he could tempt someone outside.'
‘Snakebite’: published in The Statesman Magazine, 2000.
'Keshav was only five when his father died of a snakebite. It was the month of October, an auspicious festive month for Bengalis everywhere, but for Keshav and his mother this year their house on the corner of the main village street remained aloof and quiet, draped in sorrow.'