Shazia Sikander wins the MacArthur Fellowship. A fine artiste of miniatures and installations, Sikander brings the grand total of desi 'geniuses' to ? [Atul Gawande is the other desi winner this year. Ali Akbar Khan won it in 1991 & Ayesha Jalal in 1998 {thx, dk}] Sikander came to Chicago in 1999 or 2000. Homi Bhabha introduced her. I had some wine with chocolate. Sikander gets $500,000 cash in small bills over five years.
hurrah! i've seen her stuff at a few shows and like it immensely (i am a sucker for miniatures, be they mughal, ottoman, or postmodern). also very pleased to see gawande and david macaulay and adrian leblanc on the list.
e: check this.
if you're talking about desis who've got it in the past decade, also ayesha jalal, in 1998.
you right. how lax of me to forget a historian, even.