Vikram Chandra is an Indian-American writer. His first novel, 'Red Earth and Pouring Rain', won the 1996 'Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book.
Background
Chandra was born in New Delhi in 1961. His father Navin Chandra was a business executive who is now retired. His mother Kamna Chandra has written several Hindi films and plays. His sister Tanuja Chandra became a filmmaker and screenwriter. His sister Anupama Chopra is a film critic and consulting editor for India's NDTV. Vikram is married to the writer Melanie Abrams. They both teach creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley. Chandra currently divides his time between Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, and Oakland, California, USA.
Career
Red Earth and Pouring Rain (1995), Chandra's first novel, was inspired by the autobiography of James Skinner, a legendary nineteenth-century Anglo-Indian soldier. He wrote the novel over several years while enrolled in the writing programs at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Houston. In 2000, Chandra served as co-writer, with Suketu Mehta, for Mission Kashmir, a Bollywood movie. It was directed by his brother-in-law, the award-winning director Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and starred Hrithik Roshan.