Elizabeth Kurian, better  known by her takhallus /pen name ‘Mona’ is a multilingual poet whose mother tongue is Malayalam  and whose favourite genre of poetry is Urdu ghazal.  She did a correspondence course from Jamia Milia Islamia to enable her to read and write in Urdu script. She learnt the nuances of writing ghazals from her Ustads Dr. Kamal Prasad ‘Kamal’, Hyderabad and R.P.Sharma ‘Mehrish’, Mumbai .

Apart from Urdu, she writes/translates in English. Hindi, Malayalam, Telugu and Marathi. Her published books are *“Beyond Images”–English poems,. “Kahkashaan”- Urdu ghazal collection , “Mirrors of my soul” – English translation of Maryam Gazala’s selected  Hindi/ Urdu poems ,“Tremors”- English translation of Bhookamp-Dr. Ram Barayya’s Hindi poetry, *Sapne Marushtal Mein-Hindi poetry collection, Awaiting a new season- Translation of Intezar naye mausam ka –Nusrat Mohiuddin’s Urdu nazms,. *Muhobbat ke saaye- Urdu nazms –translations of her selected poems,. Husne-ghazal – Beauty of the ghazal – Selected ghazals in Devnagiri and Roman scripts with English translation,. Shwaas se shabdtak  English translation of Dr. Ahilya Misra’s Hindi poems, Zauqe- Jusataju- Urdu ghazals,    * Beyond Images – Au dela des images – translated into French by Supratik Sen (* books with sketches by Sushil Thapa,Kathmandu, Nepal). Two books-  Urdu Ghazal, its Nuances and Prosody (English) and Qause Quzah -Urdu poetry  collection –ghazals, nazms, khitas , mahiyaas  are in the pipeline.

Kahkashaan, the ghazal anthology was given awards by UP Urdu Academy, Lucknow  and AP Urdu     Academy, Hyderabad and Muhobbat ke saaye was awarded by Telangana Urdu Academy, Hyderabad. She was conferred with the Rabindranath Tagore Award 2017-International from www.xpresspublications.com for English poetry. Her poems and articles appear in various print and electronic media. Mona is attached to various literary groups and is Secretary of the multilingual literary group Sahitya Sangam International, Hyderabad. After taking early retirement as Manager from Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai, she now pursues her passion of poetry in Hyderabad, India