Indu Sundaresan

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Indu Sundaresan
Born
India
NationalityAmerican [1]
EducationUniversity of Delaware (MS, MA)
OccupationWriter
Known forThe Taj Trilogy

Indu Sundaresan is an Indian-American author of historical fiction.[2]

Personal life[edit]

She was born and raised in India as the daughter of an Indian Air Force pilot,[3] Group Captain R. Sundaresan,[3] who died in a crash while on duty. Her mother's name is Madhuram Sundaresan.[3] The family then moved to Bangalore, where she collected books eagerly. She then migrated to the United States for graduate studies at the University of Delaware. She has an MS in operations research and an MA in economics.[3] She is married and lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband and daughter.[4]

Career[edit]

Her first novel The Twentieth Wife is about how a young widow named Mehrunissa, daughter of Persian refugees and wife of an Afghan commander, becomes Empress of the Mughal Empire under the name of Nur Jahan.[5]

Her second novel The Feast of Roses is the sequel to The Twentieth Wife and focuses on Nur Jahan exerting authority granted by her husband Jahangir during the sixteen years of her marriage to the emperor.

Shadow Princess is the third novel in the Taj trilogy set after the succession of Shahjahan (Prince Khurram) whose chief queen Mumtaz Mahal dies in childbirth and then their daughter, Jahanara takes centre stage in the politics of the court.[6]

She is also the author of The Splendor of Silence, historical fiction set in a fictional Indian princely state just before Indian independence in 1947. Her work has been translated into some 23 languages worldwide.[7]

Her short fiction has appeared in The Vincent Brothers Review and on iVillage.com.[8]

Awards[edit]

Works[edit]

Taj Mahal trilogy
  • Twentieth Wife (2002)
  • The Feast of Roses (2003)
  • Shadow Princess (2010)
Other
  • The Splendour of Silence (2006)
  • In the Convent of Little Flowers (2008)
  • The Mountain of Light (2013)

References[edit]

  1. ^ "She lives in Seattle, Washington" Indu Sundaresan's website.
  2. ^ "Do you know what we read last year?" The Hindu.
  3. ^ a b c d "Indu Sundaresan: Biography". www.indusundaresan.com. Archived from the original on 27 May 2018. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
  4. ^ a b "About". Retrieved 2019-06-10.
  5. ^ "Mesmerised by the Mughal era" The Hindu.
  6. ^ "Entranced by the past" The Hindu
  7. ^ "About". Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  8. ^ "The Vincent Brothers Review Issue #19—Home". The Vincent Brothers Review Literary Magazine. Retrieved 2023-06-19.
  9. ^ "About". indusundaresan.com. Retrieved 2020-07-18.

External links[edit]