Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956 and grew up in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. He studied at the universities of Delhi and Oxford and has taught at a number of institutions, most recently Harvard, and written for many publications. He is the author of several novels including the bestselling Sea of Poppies which was shortlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2008. He currently divides his time between Calcutta, Goa and Brooklyn.