Monisha Rajesh

Monisha Rajesh was born in 1981 in London, the daughter of Indian parents, and grew up with a complicated relationship to the India they had left — close enough to feel connected, distant enough to feel like an outsider.

Around India in 80 Trains (2012) was her attempt to understand the country through its railways — a system that carries a billion passengers a year and connects the sub-continent's extremes in a single network. She spent four months on Indian trains with her boyfriend Stuart, and the book captures both the journey's comedy and the seriousness of what she found: the extraordinary diversity of a country that the railway network simultaneously reflects and creates.

The trains themselves are characters — the Rajdhani Express of the wealthy, the unreserved coaches of the truly poor, the Darjeeling Toy Train that climbs into the Himalayan foothills. Rajesh writes about them with the attention of someone who is simultaneously reporting and rediscovering.

Around the World in 80 Trains (2019) extended the model globally — the Trans-Siberian, the Rocky Mountaineer, the Caledonian Sleeper — with the same combination of personal and sociological curiosity.

She is a regular contributor to The Guardian and The Observer, and her writing about India and travel has helped bring perspectives into British travel journalism that it previously lacked.