Farrukh Dhondy

Farrukh Dhondy (born Poona, India, in 1944) is an Indian-born British writer, playwright, screenwriter and left-wing activist of Parsi descent, who resides in the United Kingdom. He is well known not only for his writing, but also for his film and TV work.

Dhondy did his schooling at The Bishop's School, Poona, and obtained a BSc degree from University of Poona in India. He won a scholarship to Pembroke College, Cambridge where he read Natural Sciences before switching to English. After graduating he studied for a master's degree at Leicester University and was later a lecturer at Leicester College of Further Education and Archbishop Temples school in Lambeth in London.

In Leicester, Dhondy became involved with the Indian Workers' Association and later, in London, with the British Black Panther movement, joining the publication Race Today in 1970, along with his close friend Darcus Howe, and former, later deceased, partner Mala Sen, and discovering his calling as a writer. In his role as a race activist and academic, he came to be associated with black and leftwing intellectuals and activists such as Stuart Hall and Trevor Phillips. Uncharacteristically, it is also from this period that his close friendship with the conservative author Sir V. S. Naipaul dates.

Dhondy's literary output is vast, including books for children, textbooks and biographies, as well as plays for theatre and scripts film and television. He is also a columnist, a biographer (of C. L. R. James; 2001), and media executive (Channel Four Commissioning Editor 1984–97). During his time with Channel Four, he wrote the comedy series Tandoori Nights (1985–87) for the channel, which concerned the rivalry of two curry house owners.

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