Biography

Savia Viegas was born on October 30, 1957. She is an Indian academic and writer living in Carmona, South Goa. Both her parents hail from Carmona of a family of old Zonkar lineage. It is the intricate tapestry of their small secluded and fading world that is a major preoccupation in her novels – Tales from the Attic and In the Hour of Eclipse.  In many ways this microcosm reflects the larger problems of Goan society caught in the throes of modernisation. 

Savia Viegas did her schooling at St Pius X Convent, Orlim and her college education at Shrimatibai Parvatibai Chowgule College, Margao.  Subsequently, she moved to Mumbai and graduated from Elphinstone College.   

She worked for the Times of India group for a number of years before moving to a  flexi-time arrangement as researcher with the Research Centre for Women’s Studies , SNDT University, Mumbai. 

After a short stint at Xavier Institute of Communications, she opted for teaching Indian Art History at a college affiliated to the University of Mumbai where she continued until 2005.  

In 2005, Savia returned to her ancestral home in Goa where she devotes her time to writing, painting and managing a pre-primary school, Saxtti Kids, in the backyard of her old home. 

“People and houses have social roles to play,” says Savia. “The only way I could reuse the house was to extend the benefits of it as a creative space for kids.  You cannot modernise a space by bringing in more concrete structures, but you can by helping rear a thinking-generation.” Many school activities spill into her home and the demands of the school children take primacy over other things. 

She shares her home with five dogs, a cat, a mangoose that inhabits a hole in the roof, and of course, the family.

View / download Savia Viegas' CV pdf