Kiran Nagarkar, born in Bombay in 1942, wrote in Marathi and English. He studied at Ferguson College in Bombay and then worked as a lecturer at various colleges, as a journalist, scriptwriter and above all in the advertising industry. Nagarkar has published novels, theatre plays and film scripts. His first novel ‘Seven times six is forty-three’ (original: ‘Saat Sakkam Trechalis’) is considered a milestone in post-independence Indian literature. His novel ‘Ravan & Eddie’ is also set in post-colonial urban India and deals in a very amusing way with guilt, sin and sex, crime and punishment as well as the discovery of one's own self. Following the publication of his novel ‘Krishna's Shadow’ (original: ‘Cuckold’), Kiran Nagarkar was awarded the highest honour of the Indian Academy of Literature, the Sahitya Academy Award, in 2000. His novel ‘God's Little Soldier’, about a religious fundamentalist, was one of the most talked-about books at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2006. He died in 2019. (Photo: Axel Timo Purr)