Mukunda Rao is the author of several insightful philosophical and spiritual works, among which India's Greatest Minds, The Biology of Enlightenment, The Buddha and Sky-clad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Akka Mahadevi are much-read classics. He lives with his wife on a farm outside Bengaluru. Ashwitha Jayakumar has loved stories all her life, especially ones set in different times and worlds. Born in Chennai, she studied English literature and medieval studies at the universities of Edinburgh and Leeds in the United Kingdom. She has since spent over a decade working in the Indian publishing industry, and done a brief but thoroughly enjoyable stint as a high school teacher in Mumbai. She tumbled into writing children's books quite by accident, but has now written several works of fiction and non-fiction for Pratham Books, Scholastic India, Puffin Books and HarperCollins. She particularly enjoys writing non-fiction for children on history. When she's not writing or editing, she enjoys reading fantasy novels, playing Dungeons and Dragons and building elaborate Lego cities.