“The Border” which was a partition era novel was the winner of the 2001 Waterstones/London Writers Competition for fiction. Tanuja Desai Hidier is huge in the theme of first and second-generation Indians and how they find their place in the United States. She also spent an inordinate amount of time writing at coffee shops in the area. “Born Confused” her debut novel was finally finished after hours spent writing from the window of her flat overlooking the vegetable and fruit seller of Portobello market.

Tanuja started writing her debut novel while living in Paris but it was only when she moved to a Portobello Road flat in London that she started taking writing seriously. In other words, she did everything she could not to write a fiction work thus putting off her writing career indefinitely. She was also the frontwoman for “io” a punk-pop band that got gigs playing the downtown circuit. The best thing she did at the time was directing and writing “The Test,” a short award-winning film. She also worked for the Whitney Museum Film & Video Department as a secretary was the co-host of an online music streaming program. While in New York, she worked several jobs that included hostessing at a Tex Mex restaurant, walking a Saluki dog, party promoting at night clubs, magazine editor and writer, copyeditor, and intern at “The Paris Review” the literary magazine. Tanuja was brought up in Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and as a teen went to Brown University and went to live in New York. Hidier’s novels have been translated into several languages over the years.

Kirkus Review called it an immersive blend of lyricism, external drama, and introspection. The work was critically acclaimed by the likes of “Paste Magazine,” “Entertainment Weekly,” and “Rolling Stone Magazine.” It was included on lists of the best young adult novels of all time that included titles such as “Huckleberry Finn,” “To Kill A Mockingbird,” “Harry Potter,” “Little Women,” and “The Catcher in the Rye.” “Bombay Blues” her second novel won the South Asia Book Award. Hidier made her debut with the 2002 published novel “Born Confuse”d which was a landmark novel that was named Best Book for Young Adults as the first South Asian American Young Adult novel. Her short fiction has been featured in several anthologies over the years. The author was the winner of the APALA Young Adult and Children Honor Award, the Waterstones/London Writers Award, the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, and the South Asia Book Award in 2015. Tanuja Desai Hidier is a bestselling and award-winning author that is also the innovator and singer-songwriter of the booktrack.

Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier