Bapsi Sidhwa was born in Karachi – a city in Pakistan. She has taught in several International Universities and presently resides in Houston, Texas. A vocal proponent of women's rights in South Asia, she has also infused her works with strong female characters. She is also the recipient of many awards, including the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, Pakistan's highest honor. Sidhwa's novel, Cracking India, (1991, U.S.; 1992, India; originally published as Ice Candy Man, 1988, England), is the basis for Deepa Mehta's 1998 film, Earth. This story is set in Lahore in the time period directly before and during the partition of India in 1947 and is told from the point of view of a young Parsi Zoroastrian girl. Bapsi Sidhwa began her writing career at the age of 26 after visiting the Karakoram mountain-area of Pakistan with her husband. She was touched by a tragic story of a young girl who had been brought to one of the area's tribes as a bride. After being there for a short time, the girl ran away from her husband’s home. The tribals considered this a highly dishonourable act. Some of the men hunted her down and murdered her. Sidhwa first wrote a couple of short articles about the beauty of the Karakoram Mountains. However, feeling compelled to tell the girl’s story, she decided to make her first attempt at fiction writing and sat down to write a short story which turned into her first novel, The Bride (also in print as The Pakistani Bride). It is a work of fiction based on the events from the tribal girl's life. Her second novel, Crow Eaters, was a lively and humorous story about the Parsi community of Pakistan. Success didn’t come to Bapsi Sidhwa without a lot of hard work. She wrote her first two novels in Pakistan where no one was publishing in English at the time. So, after receiving many rejections, Sidhwa decided to self-publish and self-distribute Crow Eaters. In 1980, after receiving a copy of Sidhwa's self-published Crow Eaters, Britain's Jonathon Cape decided to publish it. the first two novels brought her recognition, it was her third novel, Cracking India (also published as Ice-Candy Man), that earned Bapsi Sidhwa international acclaim and acceptance as one of the most promising English novelists from South Asia, placing her among the likes of Kushwant Singh, Anita Desai, and R.K. Narayan. Cracking India won the Liberator Prize in Germany.

Her works include :

• City of Sin and Splendour : Writings on Lahore (2006, U.S.)
• Water: A Novel Based on the Film by Deepa Mehta (2006, U.S.)
• Bapsi Sidhwa Omnibus (2001, Pakistan)
• An American Brat (1993, U.S.; 1995, India)
• Cracking India (1991, U.S.; 1992, India; originally published as Ice Candy Man, 1988, England)
• Pakistani Bride (1990, U.S.)
• The Bride (1982, England; 1983, U.S.;1984, India)
• The Crow Eaters (1978, Pakistan; 1979 &1981, India; 1980, England; 1982, U.S.)