Roald Dahl (Author)
Roald Dahl was a spy, ace fighter pilot, chocolate historian and medical inventor. He was also the author of Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG and many more brilliant stories. He remains THE WORLD’S NUMBER ONE STORYTELLER.
Quentin Blake (Illustrator)
Quentin Blake has illustrated more than three hundred books and was Roald Dahl’s favourite illustrator. In 1980 he won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal. In 1999 he became the first ever Children’s Laureate and in 2013 he was knighted for services to illustration.
Lubaina Bandukwala trained as a journalist but followed her heart into children’s publishing as a writer, editor and curator of children’s
literature festivals.
With an impressive editorial career, Lubaina has contributed her editing prowess to numerous publications for esteemed media houses, including DNA, The Times of India and Time Life. She has also held the role of a consulting editor for Scholastic India and HarperCollins India. As a writer, Lubaina has showcased her versatility by crafting both fiction and non-fiction. Her works include titles like The Chowpatty Cooking Club and Let’s Do This Together: Math Stories to Solve published by Penguin Random House India.
She is passionate about promoting Indian children’s literature through literature festivals for kids. She founded the children’s literature section at the prestigious Kala Ghoda Arts Festival and her very own Peek A Book Literature Festival, held at the Royal Opera House in Mumbai.
As the awards director for BK Foundation, she helped set up the Binod Kanoria Children’s Book Awards and also serves as the Director of Communication for the Jane Goodall Institute, India.
Vineeta Kanoria has been a preschool educator for over 20 years. She also set up the Early Intervention Centre at Ummeed Child Development Center for children with special needs. She enjoys helping children and parents discover the joys of maths an an early age.
John Ralston Saul is Canada’s leading public intellectual. Declared a ‘prophet’ by Time magazine, Saul has received many awards and prizes, including Chile’s Pablo Neruda Medal. He is president of PEN International, and his thirteen works have been translated into twenty-two languages in thirty countries. Dark Diversions: a traveller’s tale is his sixth novel and his first in fifteen years.
Roshmila Bhattacharya is a senior journalist.
Sujata Massey was born in England to parents from India and Germany, grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, and lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She was a features reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun before becoming a full-time novelist. The first Perveen Mistry novel, The Widows of Malabar Hill, was an international bestseller and won the Agatha, Macavity, and Mary Higgins Clark Awards. Visit her website at sujatamassey.com.
Gulshan Grover has acted in over 400 films in India and around the world. He was one of the first mainstream actors to bridge the divide between Bollywood and Hollywood and went on to experiment with films of different countries from across the world.
Roshmila Bhattacharya is a senior journalist who in a career spanning three decades has worked with all the leading media houses, including the Times of India, Hindustan Times and the Indian Express. For the last five years she has been heading the entertainment section of Mumbai Mirror.
Chitranshul Sinha is an advocate on record of the Supreme Court of India and a partner in Dua Associates, Advocates and Solicitors, who primarily practises in the courts of New Delhi. He grew up in Ranchi and studied law at Symbiosis Law School, Pune. He occasionally writes articles for leading publications on topics related to law. He is a dog person and a sports fan.
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. He studied at the universities of Delhi and Oxford and published the first of eight novels, The Circle of Reason, in 1986. The first novel in his Ibis trilogy, Sea of Poppies, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He received the Jnanpith Award in 2018.
Viju B. is metro editor of the Times of India, Kochi. He reports chiefly on issues at the intersection of development, ecology and culture. While working in Mumbai for various national newspapers, he covered the catastrophic 26/7 Mumbai floods, the 26/11 terror attacks and the Gujarat riots. He exposed the Sindhudurg mining scam in the Western Ghats and was part of the core investigative team that exposed the Adarsh Building scam in Mumbai that eventually led to the resignation of Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan. In 2018, he extensively covered the Kerala floods, travelling to the worst-hit areas in the state.
