A peripatetic life that spans India, Italy, France and Britain. I am at home nowhere and everywhere, a magpie, cherry-picking facts and fables from every nook and cranny.

I have a PhD and Masters in Creative Writing and Critical Thought from Manchester University, but I began my academic life as an economist and have a postgraduate and undergraduate degrees from the London School of Economics.

I came to writing in a rather circuitous manner, after working as a development economist with the United Nations in Rome and spending time in Ghana and India studying the impact of poverty on the most marginal and vulnerable sections of society. It was a desire to tell the stories behind the statistics that drew me to writing, a need to deconstruct the graphs and the indices, the Lego bricks of developmental models and reveal the tragedies and triumphs lurking beneath.

As a writer I am always experimenting with different ways of writing, whether it is in the form of a novel, a short story or a poem and my main concern is to explore the interior emotional landscape of my characters, to examine the choices and compromises they make. Even though I am of Indian origin, and have spent most of my life outside India, my writing is not so much about the immigrant experience as it is about an existential sense of displacement, whether emotional, socio-political or cultural. This sense of displacement can occur in any context or setting since we are all migrants in a way, moving between different stages and versions of our being, in search of some form of happiness or certainty.

I think of books as a comfort blanket that can double up as a life jacket and the act of writing as an interrogation of the world we live in. The conversation between the reader and the writer is a lifelong collaboration. The perspective may change and the words hold different meanings, but the relationship remains ongoing and steadfast.

I am the co-founder of The Whole Kahani, a writers collective of British South Asian writers. Writing is essentially a solitary occupation, but I find this collaborative approach to be unique and helpful in that we critique each other’s works, highlight opportunities and bring our own distinctive voices to our short story anthologies. www.thewholekahani.com.

I am a Trustee on the Board of Manchester City of Literature and am keen to amplify the opportunities and literary talent of this vibrant city.

You can purchase my three titles directly from this website, using the  ‘Add to Cart’ buttons below (each title £10.00 with free postage):

Still Lives (novel)

Mrs Pinto Drives to Happiness (short stories)

A Dinner Party in the Home Counties (poems)