Aparna Sanyal is an award-winning author whose work spans poetry and fiction. Her short story anthology Instruments of Torture, published by HarperCollins India in February 2024, received widespread critical acclaim and featured on The Telegraph’s Page Turners of 2024, Sonali's Book Club’s 12 Books to Read in 2024, and the Books & Beyond Podcast’s Best Reads of 2024. The book appeared on the Amazon India Fiction Bestseller list, garnered stellar reviews across leading publications including The Telegraph, Scroll, The Asian Age, The Tribune, BOUND, Kitaab, The Daily Star, The Daak, The Indian Saga, The Chakkar, and The Purple Pencil Project, and won the StoryMirror Sahitya Awards Editor's Choice in 2025.

Her debut poetry collection, Circus Folk & Village Freaks (October 2018), a volume of tales told in rhyme, reached number one on the Amazon India Poetry Bestseller list. It was the first featured poetry recommendation on Sonali's Book Club and received highly favourable reviews in The Hindu, The Asian Age, The Indian Express, and Midweek.

Aparna holds an MA from King's College London and is the recipient of the 14th Beullah Rose Poetry Prize awarded by Smartish Pace. Her short story The Rack was shortlisted for the 2018 Third Coast Fiction Prize.

Her poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous international journals and anthologies, including The Yearbook of Indian Poetry in English 2020–21, The Hong Kong Proverse Poetry Prize Anthology 2020, The Penn Review, Smartish Pace, Dunes Review, SOFTBLOW, Vayavya, and Typehouse Literary Magazine, among others.

Aparna Sanyal is currently at work on a novel-length work of gothic fiction.