Krushna Dande is the winner of the 2025 A.C. Bose Grant. is the winner of the Speculative Literature Foundation’s 2025 A.C. Bose Grant.

Dande’s winning piece is The Keeper of the Ship. He is a writer, artist, and musician living in New Delhi, India. His academic research on topics such as reading planetary history, death in roguelike videogames, Cold War fantasies of space colonization, and Jorge Luis Borges have been presented at international conferences in Kolkata, London, and Lisbon. He is currently a PhD scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, where he researches the relationship between science fiction, conspiracy theory, and esotericism.

He enjoys carrying a sketchbook every day for drawing with friends and strangers. He enjoys the way an idea falls from the sky, still warm from the lathe. He enjoys reading, twitchy and marionette-like, in an unfamiliar language. He enjoys being awash in music until birds stir in the blue dawn. He is writing a novel that he very much hopes you will one day read

In 2019, the Speculative Literature Foundation and DesiLit co-sponsored the A.C. Bose Grant in memory of Ashim Chandra Bose, a lover of books—especially science fiction and fantasy. Bose’s children, Rupa Bose and Gautam Bose, founded the grant to honor the legacy of the worlds their father opened up for them. The donors hope that this grant will help develop work that will let young people imagine different worlds and possibilities. 

Launched in January 2004 to promote literary quality in speculative fiction, the Speculative Literature Foundation addresses historical inequities in access to literary opportunities for marginalized writers. The SLF is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, entirely supported by community donations. For more information, visit speculativeliterature.org.

The Speculative Literature Foundation is partially funded by the Oak Park Area Arts Council, Village of Oak Park, Illinois Arts Council Agency, National Endowment for the Arts and Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation.

[Based on a press release.]