Pratima Mitchell

Pratima Mitchell was born in India and went to universities in Delhi, London and the United States. She has been a traveller from a very young age and has lived in Russia, Nigeria and Austria for extended periods.

She comes from a family of writers and was first published at the age of eleven. She has worked as a journalist, editor, waitress, school teacher and teacher of English. She travels to India several times a year. Her base is Oxford where she digs an allotment, rides her bike and writes in her garden shed. Music is very important to her and so are books and friendship. She has one daughter who is a concert violinist.

Pratima has written over 22 books, the most recent of which include a picture book, PETAR’S SONG, illustrated by Caroline Binch, and INDIAN MUTINY for the 'My Story' series of historical diaries written by fictional characters. Her latest novel for teens, INDIAN SUMMER, will be published by Walker Books in January 2009.

When 14-year-old Sarla decides to spend a summer in India with her grandparents a whole new world opens up to her. Everyone dotes on Sarla, the visiting Westerner; all except the housekeeper's granddaughter, Bina, who has been funded through school by Sarla's grandparents and treated almost as their own.

As studious and responsible Bina gradually opens up to vivacious and carefree Sarla her extraordinary secret is revealed: her mother is a notorious outlaw known as the Bandit Queen. Jailed for murdering her abusive husband, Bina's mother is honorary leader of the much-feared local Liberation Front and is revered and prayed to as a goddess by villagers for miles around. Meanwhile Bina is falling in love with the nephew of an aging local Princess and will do anything to keep her secret safe.

And as Sarla finds out, the secret doesn't end there.

A glorious evocation of India and an incisive look at the issues of class, empire and women's rights there, INDIAN SUMMER is a gripping and beautifully-written novel for readers aged 11 and up.