Who is Francesca Orsini, the JNU and London University scholar denied entry at Delhi airport?
A UK-based academic, Francesca Orsini, was on Monday denied entry into India at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport. Orsini, Professor Emerita at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, was reportedly deported upon her arrival from Hong Kong.According to unnamed officials familiar with the matter, Orsini was travelling on a tourist visa and had violated its conditions. According to media reports, Orsini said she held a valid visa but was not allowed to enter India and was sent back to Hong Kong.Literary historian with a focus on multilingualism in South AsiaFrancesca Orsini is an Italian scholar who specialises in South Asian literature, particularly Hindi and Urdu. She holds a PhD from SOAS, University of London, where she retired as Professor Emerita of Hindi and South Asian Literature. She was previously a lecturer at the University of Cambridge before joining SOAS in 2006.On the SOAS website, Orsini describes herself as “a literary historian working primarily with Hindi and Urdu materials and interested in exploring how multilingualism worked and continues to work within the literary cultures of South Asia.”Educational background across three countriesOrsini began her academic journey with a BA in Hindi from Venice University in Italy. She later studied in India, attending the Central Institute of Hindi and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi. She completed her PhD at SOAS, University of London, where she focused on the Hindi literary public sphere of the 1920s and 1930s.Her dissertation, published as The Hindi Public Sphere, 1920–1940: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism (Oxford University Press, 2002), examined the tension between literary experimentation and the emergence of a moral-patriotic canon in education. Published works and academic projectsOrsini has authored several key academic works. Her 2009 book, Print and Pleasure: Popular Literature and Entertaining Fictions in Colonial North India (Permanent Black), focused on Hindi and Urdu commercial publishing in the 19th century. In 2023, she published East of Delhi: Multilingual Literary Culture and World Literature with Oxford University Press.She led the AHRC-funded project “North Indian Literary Culture and History” (2006–09), and later headed the European Research Council project “Multilingual Locals and Significant Geographies: For a New Approach to World Literature” (MULOSIGE) from 2016 to 2021, which examined world literature through regional perspectives across North India, the Maghreb, and the Horn of Africa.Recognised academic with international affiliationsFrancesca Orsini was elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in July 2017. She was a Mary I. Bunting Institute Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, during the 2013–2014 academic year. She has held visiting positions at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.According to Wikipedia, Orsini married English Japanologist Peter Kornicki in 1998. She is an Italian citizen and has not applied for UK citizenship or permanent residency.
