Ankush Saikia was born in Tezpur, Assam in 1975 and grew up in Madison, Wisconsin; Assam; and Shillong, Meghalaya. He has worked in journalism and publishing in New Delhi, and is currently based in Shillong in North-East India.

Saikia is the author of eight previous books including The Forest Beneath the Mountains, The Girl From Nongrim Hills, and the Detective Arjun Arora series (Tears of the Dragon is the fourth book in the Arjun Arora series.) He was shortlisted for the Outlook/Picador-India non-fiction writing competition in 2005, and was one of the recipients of the Shanghai Writers’ Association’s 2018 fellowships.

His articles and longform stories (mostly on North-East India) have appeared in FountainInk magazine, Scroll.in, The Indian Express, The Hindu, and Hindustan Times, among others.