Vayu Naidu (born 1957) is a British Indian storyteller, performer and writer.^[1] The author of Sita's Ascent and Under the Banyam, she is credited with coining the term 'performance storytelling'.^[2]

At the age of 27 Naidu was in an accident which left her without speech. She recovered her speech, which she needed for theatre, through storytelling.^[2]

In 1994 she received a PhD in oral tradition as performance from the University of Leeds.^[1]

In her 1996-7 production Kathasuniascea, she used music and movement to retell traditional stories from India, Nigeria and Ireland. Parting Company (1997) was a collaboration with composer Judith Weir, a celebration of Indian and European mythologies marking fifty years since Indian independence. Future' Perfect (2000) was another collaboration with Weir for the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.^[1]

Naidu moved to Canterbury in 2000. She was awarded an AHRB fellowship from the University of Kent for a project entitled The Presence of Absences: Exploring Technique and Manifestation in the Contemporary Performance Storyteller.^[1]

Her novel Sita's Ascent is a retelling of the epic Ramayana.^[3]

In 2019 Naidu accepted an International Excellence award at London Book Fair on behalf of children's books company Tulika Publishers.^[4] She has published several collections of stories for children, which have also been used in the Channel 4 animation Biswas.^[1] She has also narrated several audiobooks by Kishwar Desai.