Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond, born 19 May 1934, is an Indian author of British descent. He is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children's authors and a top novelist.

In 1992 he received the Sahitya Akademi award for English writing, for his short stories collection, "Our Trees Still Grow in Dehra", by the Sahitya Academy, India's National Academy of Literature in India. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 for contributions to children's literature. He now lives with his adopted family in Landour near Mussoorie.

Early life

His father was with the Royal Air Force during . He had one sister and brother, Ellen and William Bond. When the writer was four years old, his mother separated from his father and married a Punjabi-Hindu, Mr. Hari, who himself had been married once.

When he was ten years old Ruskin went to his grandmothers in Dehradun (he called her the "Culcata Granny") because of his father's sudden death due to frequent bouts of malaria and jaundice.

After his High School education in Shimla he spent four years in England. In London he started writing his first novel, The Room on the Roof, the semi-autobiographical story of the orphaned Anglo-Indian boy Rusty. Bond used the advance money which he got for this book to pay the sea passage to Bombay. He worked for some years as a journalist in Delhi and Dehradun. Since 1963 he has lived as a...
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