Archives: Authors

Dr Brittany Montgomery is a Project Leader at BCG and former Ambassador to the BCG Henderson Institute, where she concentrated on family-owned businesses. She is an AICP Certified City Planner and has 14 years of experience supporting governments in Latin America, China, and the US in strategic planning, governance, economic development, infrastructure, and transportation.

Lewis Carroll, born Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-98), grew up in Cheshire in the village of Daresbury, the son of a parish priest. He was a brilliant mathematician, a skilled photographer and a meticulous letter and diary writer. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, inspired by Alice Liddell, the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church in Oxford, was published in 1865, followed by Through the Looking-Glass in 1871. He wrote numerous stories and poems for children including the nonsense poem The Hunting of the Snark and fairy stories Sylvie and Bruno.

Hermann Hesse was born in Calw, Germany, in 1877. As a child, he lived for a time in Basle. He spent a short period studying at a seminary in Germany but soon left to work as a bookseller in Switzerland. After a first volume of verse (1899), Hesse established his reputation with
a series of lyrical romantic novels—Peter Camenzind (1904), Unterm Rad (The Prodigy, 1906), Gertrud (1910) and the short story, Knulp (1915). His humanity, his searching philosophy developed further in such novels as Siddhartha (1922), Der Steppenwolf (1927), Narziss and Goldmund (1930) and Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game, 1943), while his poems and critical writings won him a leading place among contemporary thinkers. Hesse won many literary awards, including the Nobel Prize in 1946.

KHWAJA AHMAD ABBAS (1914 -1987) was a film-maker, novelist, screenwriter, journalist,
short-story writer and playwright. He wrote more than seventy-four books. As a director and screenwriter, Abbas is considered one of the pioneers of Indian parallel or neo-realistic cinema. He penned a number of neo-realistic films, such as Dharti Ke Lal (which he directed), Naya Sansar, Jagte Raho and Saat Hindustani (which he also directed). As a screenwriter, he is known for having written Raj Kapoor’s best films, including Awara, Shree 420, Mera Naam Joker, Bobby and Henna.

Rahul Ramagundam is a Delhi-based academic. For this biography of George Fernandes, he received in 2018, a book-writing fellowship from the prestigious New India Foundation. The book has won the Ramnath Goenka Award for Excellence in Non-fiction for 2022.
Rahul’s many books include Gandhi’s Khadi (2008) and Including the Socially Excluded (2017).

Manjari Jaruhar is one of the first five women police officers in India and the first from the state of Bihar. She retired as Special Director General of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and is presently an Advisor to Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) based out of New Delhi.

Yasmin Khan was born in London. She is a University Lecturer in British history at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Kellogg College. The Great Partition is her first book. It has won the Gladstone Prize from the Royal Historical Society and been translated into Hindi and Urdu.

Frank L. Baum (1856-1919) was born in New York. He enjoyed making up stories, particularly for his own children. The Wizard of Oz, based on their favourite bedtime story about a land of Oz, was published in 1900 and it immediately became a huge international success. He wrote several sequels and numerous other kinds of books under a pseudonym.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was born in India, although educated in England. He was a prolific writer and recognized as a genius. In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His many books for children includeJust So Stories and Kim.

Onir is an acclaimed Indie filmmaker, based in Mumbai. His first film, My Brother Nikhil, won several Indian and international awards, including the Montreal Jury Award. His film I Am won the 2011 National Award as well as several international awards, including Best Film at the London Asian Film Festival. Onir has received the Diversity Award from Film Victoria Australia and La Trobe University at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2019, and the Jury special mention for outstanding work on LGBT issues at the Indus Valley International Film Festival October 2020. He is one of the few people of the Indian film industry who are open about their personal identity. Onir also writes poetry.

Irene Dhar Malik is an award-winning film editor, screenwriter and writer of short stories. Irene’s short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies, such as like a volume of Afro-Asian short stories, Behind the Shadows, short stories by Indian women, Ripples, and in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.