Shrabani Basu

Shrabani Basu is a journalist and Sunday Times best-selling author. Her books include the critically acclaimed Mystery of the Parsee Lawyer: Arthur Conan Doyle, George Edalji and the Case of the Foreigner in the English Village, For King and Another Country: Indian Soldiers on the Western Front 1914-18, Victoria & Abdul: The True Story of the Queen’s Closest Confidant (now a major motion picture,) Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan and Curry: The Story of the Nation’s Favourite Dish. She was born in Calcutta and grew up in Dhaka, Kathmandu, and Delhi. She graduated in History from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and completed her Master’s from Delhi University. In 1983 she began her career as a trainee journalist in the bustling offices of The Times of India in Bombay. She moved to London in 1987. Over her long career, she has done exclusive interviews with many eminent people including Benazir Bhutto, Sheikh Hasina, Salman Rushdie, Nirad C Chaudhuri, and Viv Richards. She has always combined her journalism with her love of history and all her books have evolved from her observations about the shared histories of India and Britain.