Shilpi Somaya Gowda is an internationally acclaimed Canadian author residing in California with her husband, Anand, and two children. Born on December 9, 1970, to a couple who emigrated from Mumbai, Gowda grew up in Toronto. She completed her bachelor’s in economics from the University of North Carolina. She pursued her MBA from Stanford University, after which she pursued a career in business strategy and continued her consulting practice. She harbored the idea of her first novel after her volunteering experience in an Indian orphanage during the summer of 1991.