Rana Dasgupta was born in Canterbury, England in 1971, and grew up in Cambridge. He studied French literature at Balliol College, Oxford, piano at the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud in Aix-en-Provence, and communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  After his studies he worked for some time in a marketing consultancy firm in London, Kuala Lumpur and then New York.  In 2001, he moved to Delhi to write, and his first book, Tokyo Cancelled, was published in 2005. Narrated by travelers stuck for a night in an airport, Tokyo Cancelled is a cycle of folktales about contemporary cities and the experience of living under globalization.  It was short-listed for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (UK) and the Vodafone Crossword Award (India).  Dasgupta’s novel, Solo, was published in 2009.  Set in Bulgaria, Solo is an epic exploration of science, music, daydreams and failure.  Salman Rushdie wrote of it, “Solo confirms Rana Dasgupta as the most unexpected and original Indian writer of his generation.” Dasgupta now lives permanently in Delhi, and is at present working on a non-fiction book about his adopted city.