Almas Hussain

Brought up by an eccentric 43-member joint family in Kolkata, Almas can trace her ancestry to the Nawabs of Jalpaiguri (paternal) and Simri Bakhtiarpur (maternal). Within this orthodox male-dominated scenario, she was born the fifth daughter in an all-girl nuclear family. This could have been a lifelong disaster for the five sisters had they not been privileged with a broad-minded father and a suitable education. After graduating with English Honours from Loreto House, Almas founded and ran two advertising agencies (Via and Diva) before switching professions to full-time writing. An unabashed feminist, she has a lively sense of the ridiculous and is a bundle of contradictions. Intrinsically happy, she adores tragedies and sad songs. An enthusiastic extrovert, she’s happiest on her own. Passionate about writing, Almas seeks to bring to the notice of the world how skewed it is against the interests of women, particularly when they are poor and defenceless in a fiercely patriarchal society as is the case with Nafisa and Meher in her latest novel, Daughters of Char Chinar. She has also written Venus With A P*nis which is being developed into a web series by a major Hindi film producer. The transferable nature of her husband’s job at Tata Steel afforded Almas the unique opportunity to immerse her soul in cities like Jamshedpur, Kochi, Bengaluru, Dhaka, London, Oxford, Chennai and Tehran. Almas currently resides in the city of her birth, Kolkata with her husband, Manzer and son, Mikhail. She also has a daughter, Soraya who lives and works in London with her husband Amit and son, Kaveer.