After an advanced degree in Psychology from Lucknow University, India, Zakia Mashhadi worked in its Demographic Research Center for some time and also taught Psychology for six years at Loreto College. Her marriage to Shafi Mashhadi, a bureaucrat, and later the birth of their two children obliged her to put her writerly ambition on hold. Read More She came to it much later in life but whatever fiction she wrote was received with critical acclaim. She has published four collections of short stories so far and has also published several books of translated fiction. She lives in Patna.