Stephen Alter is the author of more than twenty books of fiction and nonfiction. Wild Himalaya: A Natural History of the Greatest Mountain Range on Earth, his most recent work of non-fiction, received the 2020 Banff Mountain Book Award in the Mountain Environment and Natural History category. His memoir, Becoming a Mountain: Himalayan Journeys in Search of the Sacred and the Sublime, received the Kekoo Naoroji Award for Himalayan Literature. In the Jungles of the Night: A Novel about Jim Corbett was shortlisted for the DSC South Asian Literature Award. His latest work of fiction is Birdwatching: A Novel.

Alter has taught at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, where he was director of the writing program for seven years. Following this, he was writer-in-residence at MIT for ten years. Among the honours he has received are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Program, the East West Centre in Hawaii, and the Banff Centre for Mountain Culture. He is also the founding director of the Mussoorie Mountain Festival.