"Ruskin Bond is one of India’s most well-known writers. Born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, in 1934, he grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun and Shimla. In the course of a writing career spanning over seventy years, he has published over a hundred books, including short-story collections, poetry, novels, essays, memoirs and journals, edited anthologies and books for children. The Room on the Roof was his first novel, written when he was seventeen. It received the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. He has also received many other awards, including the Sahitya Akademi award in 1992, the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014. Many of his stories and novellas including The Blue Umbrella, A Flight of Pigeons and Susanna’s Seven Husbands have been adapted into films. Ruskin lives in Landour, Mussoorie. His other books with HarperCollins include These are a Few of My Favourite Things, Koki’s Song, How to Be a Writer, The Enchanted Cottage and How to Live Your Life."
<p>Ruskin Bond had his first short story published when he had just left school. Two years later, his first novel, The Room on the Roof, was accepted by a London publisher. On the ship that brought him home to India he met a twelve-year-old girl called Koki, who shared her chocolates with him, having heard that he did not have money for chocolates. He did not see Koki again, but she turns up in his stories from time to time. She doesn’t grow old. She is twelve-year-old Koki forever. And if you live close to nature, to flowers, trees, birds and mountain streams, you will remain young, like Koki and Somi. Over the years, I have written hundreds of stories. And whenever I write a story about children and the creatures of the forest, the years slip away and I am a boy again,” says Ruskin Bond. “</p><div><br></div>
