Buku Sarkar is a photographer and writer. She was born in Calcutta and grew up between Calcutta and New York. She mostly writes fiction. Her writing and photographs have appeared in publications including the NYRB, N+1, Threepenny Review, Humble Arts Foundation and The New York Times.
Her photobook Photowali Didi is published by Fall Line Press and has 112 pages. It follows a group of women she met doing laundry one Saturday morning in Kolkata. She asked if she could photograph them, and they agreed. When she came back with prints, they invited her into their homes. Over months she became known as their Photowali Didi, the sister with the photos. She says she began the project at a time when she was very unwell, and that taking photographs helped her.
In her photo essay Art vs Pornography she asks where art ends and pornography begins. The women she photographs for it choose their own poses and clothes.
