Meena Alexander was born in India and raised there and in North Africa. She currently lives in New York City where she works as a professor of English and Creative Writing at Hunter College and at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her work has been published widely and has been translated into a number of languages. It includes several collections of poetry, including her latest, River and Bridge, and a long poem, Night Scene, the Garden, which was produced as an Off-Broadway play in 1988. She has also had two novels published, Manhattan Music, and one entitled Nampally Road, which was a 1991 Village Voice Literary Supplement Editor’s Choice. In addition to her work as poet and novelist Meena Alexander has published a book of poetry and essays called The Shock of Arrival and a memoir, Fault Lines. In 1993 she was the winner of a MacDowell Fellowship.