Shanta Acharya is the author of eleven books, her publications range from poetry, literary criticism and fiction to finance. Her latest, Imagine: New and Selected Poems, is published by HarperCollins Publishers (India), 2017. Born and educated in Cuttack, Orissa, she won a scholarship to Oxford, where she was among the first batch of women admitted to Worcester College in 1979. A recipient of the Violet Vaughan Morgan Fellowship, she was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy for her work on Ralph Waldo Emerson. She was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of English and American Literature and Languages at Harvard University before joining Morgan Stanley in London. She worked in the asset management industry and has written extensively on the subject. Founder of Poetry in the House, she hosted a series of monthly poetry readings at Lauderdale House in London from 1996-2015. In addition to her philanthropic activities, she served twice on the board of trustees of the Poetry Society in the UK.