Sharifa Vijaliwala

Sharifa Vijaliwala (born 4 August 1962) is an Indian Gujarati language writer, critic, translator and editor from Surat, Gujarat, India. She is a recipient of a 2018 Sahitya Akademi Award for Vibhajanni Vyatha, a collection of critical essays in Gujarati, and has won several Gujarat Sahitya Akademi awards for her literary work. Sharifa Vijliwala was born to her parents, Kasambhai and Hajaraben, on 4 August 1962 in Amargadh, a village in Shihor, in the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat, India. She completed her primary education there, and passed her secondary and higher secondary board exams in 1978 and 1981 respectively. In 1985, she graduated from the Faculty of Technology and Engineering, at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda earning a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree. She worked as a pharmacist for five years. Because of her interest in literature, she had also joined the university's Gujarati department to study Gujarati literature in 1986. In 1990, she secured the first rank in the university and completed post graduation with a Kantawala Gold Medal. During her literature studies, she passed the National Eligibility Test (UGC NET) examination and secured a Junior Research Fellowship. In 1994, under the guidance of Shirish Panchal, she researched narratology. Vijliwala received a PhD for her dissertation Point of View in Short Stories: A Critical Study with Particular Reference to Some Gujarati Short Stories. She taught Gujarati literature at the M.T.B. Arts College, Surat from 1991 to 2013. Since 2013, Vijliwala has been a professor and head at the Department of Gujarati, at Veer Narmad South Gujarat University in Surat.