Shweta Taneja is an Indian novelist, short story author, graphic novelist, and journalist. Shweta Taneja has written the novels The Rakta Queen: An Anantya Tantrist Mystery, The Matsya Curse: An Anantya Tantrist Mystery, How to Steal a Ghost @ Manipal, Cult of Chaos: An Anantya Tantrist Mystery and The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong. Her short story, The Daughter That Bleeds was published in Best Asian Speculative Fiction and won the Editor's Choice Award. The story was translated into French under the title La Fille qui saigne, published in Galaxies magazine and has been shortlisted for the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire Awards for 2020 in France. She wrote the scripts for The Skull Rosary, a five-story graphic novel involving the Hindu god Shiva and Krishna: Defender of Dharma, about the Hindu god Krishna. She currently lives and works in Bangalore, India.
Taneja's journalist career began with the magazines Femina and Men's Health. She continues to write for several print and online publications including Mint, Discover India, Swarajya, Scroll and The Huffington Post. Her first publication was the Krishna: Defender of Dharma graphic novel, for which she wrote the script and collaborated with illustrator Rajesh Nagulakonda. In 2013, the graphic novel was recommended for Classes 7 & 8 for schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education, India by the Association of Writers & Illustrators for Children. The Ghost Hunters of Kurseong was her first novel. It involves a group of twelve-year olds who solve a mystery in the hill town Kurseong in India. Taneja promoted the novel using a children's detective workshop. Groups of children would solve a mystery within a given time and then draw out their version of the events The Skull Rosary was Taneja's second graphic novel. She wrote the script and collaborated with five different illustrators for each of the five stories in the novel. It was nominated for Best Writer and Best Cover for the Comic Con India awards 2013. Her next work was Cult of Chaos: An Anantya Tantrist Mystery which is a detective fantasy novel based in Delhi, India. The protagonist of Cult of Chaos is Anantya who is a woman tantrist - a practitioner of Tantra. Cult of Chaos is billed as India's first tantic-detective novel. The novel was launched with The OccultDetective Quiz at Bangalore, India In 2016, Taneja published How to Steal a Ghost @ Manipal which is as described by The Asian Age as "A young student turns into a paranormal investigator to impress her boyfriend." The book is published in an ebook format by Juggernaut Books and it was the Taneja's foray into becoming a hybrid author. Her second novel of the Anantya Tantrist Mystery series - The Matsya Curse was published in 2017. In 2016, Taneja was selected for the Charles Wallace India Fellowship. The third novel of the Anantya Tantrist Mystery series - The Rakta Queen was published in 2018. In February 2020, Taneja's short story was shortlisted for the French Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire Awards 2020. The short story is about a dystopian future in India where fertile women are treated as commodities.
