Ruchir Joshi is a filmmaker and writer based in Calcutta. His cinematic work includes the internationally award-winning non-fiction films Eleven Miles, Memories of Milk City, and Tales from Planet Kolkata. Since the early 1980s, Joshi has worked as a freelance columnist and essayist. His first novel, The Last Jet-Engine Laugh, was published in India and the UK in 2001 to critical acclaim. In 2009, he edited Electric Feather, the first collection of contemporary Indian erotic writing, and in 2011, he published Poriborton – An Election Diary, a collection of vignettes from the West Bengal state elections.

Beyond his novels, Joshi has had a forty-year-long career as a journalist, essayist, and opinion writer, contributing columns to The Telegraph, The Hindu, and Hindustan Times, as well as long-form pieces for international magazines like Granta. His forthcoming novel, Great Eastern Hotel, will be published next year by HarperCollins – 4th Estate in both India and the UK.

Joshi originally trained in visual arts and photography and has consistently maintained his practice in both photography and drawing throughout his career.