Ruskin Bond

Ruskin Bond (born 1934) is an Indian author of novels, short stories, essays and children’s books whose writing is closely associated with the Himalayan foothills and the small towns of northern India. Born in Kasauli, he grew up in places including Jamnagar, Dehradun, New Delhi and Shimla. His first novel, The Room on the Roof, was written when he was seventeen and later won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. Bond has since written hundreds of short stories and essays and more than seventy books for children, often drawing on his own childhood, Anglo-Indian communities, hill stations, railways and everyday life in India. His honours include the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan.

Most of Bond’s fiction was contemporary or semi-autobiographical when written, but A Flight of Pigeons is a clear historical novel. Set in Shahjahanpur during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, it follows Ruth Labadoor and her family after her father is killed during an attack by rebel sepoys. They seek refuge before being taken into the household of the Pathan leader Javed Khan, whose fascination with Ruth complicates their position as the rebellion unfolds around them. Based on historical events, the novella presents the uprising through intimate domestic relationships rather than military history alone and was adapted as the film Junoon. Other works such as The Room on the Roof, Vagrants in the Valley and Delhi Is Not Far now evoke an earlier India, but they were essentially contemporary fiction rather than novels deliberately set in a historical period.