Alka Joshi

Alka Joshi is an Indian-American novelist whose colorful, historical family sagas won instant global acclaim. Her debut The Henna Artist — first of the Jaipur Trilogy, telling of a woman in 1950s Jaipur who builds an independent life as a henna artist — and its sequels The Secret Keeper of Jaipur became word-of-mouth bestsellers translated into many languages.

Moving to the United States as a child, Joshi studied and worked in advertising before returning to fiction and to her family's home state of Rajasthan. Her novels are loved for their vivid settings, female ambition and Indian historical texture, and she has become a celebrated voice in historical fiction.