Piu DasGupta

*Picture credit: Elena Hmeleva Photography*

“I feel very lucky indeed to have Kate fighting my corner.”

Piu DasGupta was born in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, with an English mother and Indian father. Her Bengali grandmother was a writer and her early childhood was spent surrounded by the sitar and Tagore songs.

Piu’s first literary work was a poem about a great flood in Kolkata that swamped the family’s home, forcing them to camp on the rooftop. In later childhood she moved with her mother and sister to England and studied English at Oxford University, graduating with a First-Class degree, after which she pursued an eclectic career as a lawyer and subsequently a writer.

She now lives in Paris with her family, and writes across a wide range of genres including adult and children’s books and poetry.

Piu’s debut middle grade novel, Secrets of the Snakestone, was an Official Indie Children’s Bestseller, a Times Children’s Book of the Week and was widely reviewed in The Guardian, New Statesman and The Observer.

piu’s books

Secrets of the Snakestone, Nosy Crow, 2024.

REVIEWERS

“Spellbinding.”

The Observer

“Elegant, exciting and evocative…and as twisty as a giant snake.”

New Statesman

“Marks Piu DasGupta as an author to watch.”

The Guardian

Latest Book

THE BOOKs WHICH MOST INSPIRED PIU

Daphne DuMaurier – Rebecca – deliciously dark, sinister, poetic and decadently romantic.

Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Lightness of Being – I love the Europeanism and the way Kundera becomes a “character” himself in his novels.

Susan Cooper and Alan Garner – The Dark is Rising and The Owl Service – I love this genre of children’s magical realism, drawing and based on mythical and folkloric elements. Also Neil Gaiman’s work, which develops and updates this.

Also the work of Kiran Millwood Hargrave, especially the intoxicating combination of light and shade.

PIU about KATE

The minute I met Kate, we immediately hit it off. Kate is wise, smart, funny, hands-on, has a fantastic eye, and most importantly is a genuine and caring person who treats her authors like family. I feel very lucky indeed to have her fighting my corner.

KATE ABOUT PIU

Piu’s writing for children is gorgeous – evocative, sensory, thrilling, funny and more than a little dark. From the very first page of her debut, Secrets of the Snakestone, I knew I wanted to represent this extraordinary writer. Then I met Piu on Zoom and we hit it off like a house on fire. I’m so thrilled we are working together.