Mannu Bhandari was a trail-blazing Hindi fiction writer whose engaging and thoughtful short stories and novels shone a light on middle-class life-especially women’s lives-in north India in the 1950s and 1960s. Born in Bhanpura in Madhya Pradesh in 1931, she grew up in Ajmer before moving to Calcutta where she did her BA and MA in Hindi. She taught Hindi for several years in Calcutta. In 1959, she married writer Rajendra Yadav. She has published several acclaimed collections of short stories. Her story ‘Yehi Sach Hai’ was made into a film by Basu Chatterjee, Rajnigandha (1974). She wrote two novels, Aapka Bunty in 1971 and Mahabhoj in 1982. She co-wrote a novel with her husband, Rajendra Yadav, Ek Inch Muskaan. She died in 2021.

Poonam Saxena is a journalist with Hindustan Times, where she is the editor of the Sunday magazine. She did her BA and MA in history from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and went on to do an MPhil from Delhi University. She has been a journalist for almost twenty years, first as a freelancer and then as features editor with newspapers such as the Asian Age. She wrote a popular TV review column in the Hindustan Times called Small Screen for almost ten years. Her translation of Gunahon ka Devta, acclaimed Hindi writer Dharamvir Bharati's iconic 1949 novel into English (Chander & Sudha, Penguin Viking) received glowing reviews.