Jamila Gavin

Jamila Gavin FRSL (born 9 August 1941) is a British writer born in Mussoorie in the United Provinces of India, in the present-day state of Uttarakhand in the Western Himalayas. She is known primarily for children's books including several with Indian origins.

Gavin was born on 9 August 1941 in Mussoorie in the foothills of the Himalayas. Her father was Indian and her mother English; they met as teachers in Iran. She learned to describe herself as "half and half". She says online that from her mixed background "I inherited two rich cultures which ran side by side throughout my life, and which always made me feel I belonged to both countries."

She first visited England when she was six, and settled there when she was 11. She worked in the music department of the BBC before becoming a writer.

She wrote her first book, The Magic Orange Tree and Other Stories, in 1979. After her first child was born because she became aware that there were few children's books reflecting their experience as multi-racial children. She has also written books reflecting her childhood in India, particularly her Surya trilogy.

She is also a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables schoolchildren across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres.

Gavin settled in Stroud, Gloucestershire before 1990 and was still living there in 2009 and in 2012.

Her son, the novelist Rohan Gavin, married Dido, a singer-songwriter.

The Surya trilogy (1992 to 1997) is a family saga following two generations of Indian Sikhs and showing the impact of the British Empire and the Partition of India on their lives. The three volumes are The Wheel of Surya (1992), The Eye of the Horse (1994) and The Track of the Wind (1997). All three books made the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize shortlist and The Wheel of Surya was special runner-up.

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