Janice Pariat is an author and poet. Her first collection of short stories, "Boats on Land," was awarded the 2013 Sahitya Akademi Young Writer Award for the English language and the 2013 Crossword Book Award for fiction. Pariat is the first Meghalayan author to receive the Sahitya Akademi for her work. Her writing style consists of reimaginings of both fiction and nonfiction, and is frequently compared to magical realism.