Jamila Gavin

Jamila Gavin was born in Mussoorie, India, in the foothills of the Himalayas. With an Indian father and an English mother, she inherited two rich cultures which ran side by side throughout her life, and which always made her feel she belonged to both countries.

The family finally settled in England where Jamila completed her schooling, was a music student, worked for the BBC and became a mother of two children. It was then that she began writing children’s books, and felt a need to reflect the multi-cultural world in which she and her children now lived.

Since her first book, “The Magic Orange Tree” was published in 1979, she has been writing steadily, producing collections of short stories and several teenage novels for the whole age range from six to sixteen, including “Grandpa Chatterji”, which was short-listed for the Smarties Award and was dramatised for television on Channel 4 Schools, and The Surya Trilogy of which the first, “The Wheel of Surya”, was runner-up for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award in 1992, and is currently under option for a major film adaptation to be called “Journey Through Midnight.”.

Her book, “Coram Boy”, a novel for young adults, was published to critical acclaim in 2000 and won the Children’s Whitbread Award, as well as being short listed for the Carnegie Medal. It was subsequently adapted for the stage and had two highly successful runs at the National Theatre in 2005/6. A film of Coram Boy is also in the planning with Alan Parker as writer and director.

Jamila has written for television, radio and the stage. Her first original radio play, “The God at The Gate” was broadcast on Radio 4 and she is currently adapting Coram Boy for Radio 4’s Classic Serial, to be broadcast this December. She adapted her children’s book, “The Monkey in the Stars” as a play for the Polka Theatre, which was followed up by a Polka commission for a play called “Just So,” based on Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So” stories. She also dramatised “Grandpa Chatterji” for Channel 4 Schools that starred Roshan Seth and Saeed Jaffrey.

“The Blood Stone,” a novel set in C17 Venice and the Mogul court of Shah Jehan in India, was published in 2003, and her latest novel, “The Robber Baron’s Daughter” is published this August, 2008. In between her novels, Jamila has written numerous short stories, and involved herself in charitable projects such as abridging “Measure for Measure” for the Shakespeare Schools Festival.

Jamila has lived in Gloucestershire for over thirty years. She is a regular visitor to the schools and libraries all over the country.

Here, master storyteller Jamila Gavin draws them from the four corners of the globe: “The Whistling Monster”, a cautionary tale from Brazil; “The Coming of Raven”, a creation myth from Canada; “The Birth of Krishna”, an ancient legend from India…

Full of mystery, wit and wisdom, with enduring themes of good versus evil, these ten tales have survived hundreds of years of retelling to become favourites among children all around the world.