Bapsi Sidhwa

Sidhwa was born to Parsi Zoroastrian parents Peshotan and Tehmina Bhandara in Karachi, Bombay Presidency. Later, she moved with her family to Lahore, Punjab Province. She was two years old when she contracted polio (which has affected her throughout her life) and nine in 1947 at the time of Partition (facts which would shape the character Lenny in her novel Cracking India as well as the background for her novel). She received her BA from Kinnaird College for Women University in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1957. She married at the age of 19 and moved to Bombay for five years before she divorced and remarried in Lahore with her present husband, Noshir, who is also a Zoroastrian. She had three children before beginning her career as an author. One of her children is Mohur Sidhwa, who is a candidate for state representative in Arizona. She currently resides in Houston in the US. She describes herself as a "Punjabi-Parsi". Her first language is Gujarati, her second language is Urdu, and her third language is English. She can read and write best in English, but she is more comfortable talking in Gujarati or Urdu, and often translates literally from Gujarati or Urdu to English.