Shreekumar Varma is a novelist, award-winning playwright, poet and newspaper columnist. His books include Lament of Mohini (Penguin, 2000) and the children`s book, The Royal Rebel (Macmillan, 1997). He won the Charles Wallace Award in 2004 and was writer-in-residence at Stirling University, Scotland. He teaches creative English and has written stories and poems for children, which have appeared in anthologies and periodicals. He lives in Chennai with his wife, Geeta, and two sons, Vinayak and Karthik. He can be contacted at www.shreevarma.com.