Sharmini Aphrodite was born in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, raised in Johor Bahru, and is of Tatana and Tamil heritage. Her short fiction and writings on art, literature, and history have appeared online, in print, and as part of art exhibitions. She is the Editor-in-Chief of SUSPECT, a journal of Asian literary writing. Her short story collection The Unrepentant was published with Gaudy Boy in 2025 and she is currently working on a novel titled The Prodigal that explores forced conversions of Indigenous Peoples in Sabah to Islam by the Malaysian state during the 20th century.
She holds an M.A. (History) from Nanyang Technological University and is currently pursuing a joint PhD in Southeast Asian studies at the National University of Singapore and History at King’s College London. Her academic research focuses on resistance to state-making as articulated through Christianity, language, ritual and agricultural practices, the sensorial and more in 20th Century Sabah among Indigenous communities. Her wider research interests sit in the intersection of Indigenous and/or Global South Christian articulations, liberation theology, ritual practice and agricultural communities.