Marina Budhos

Marina Budhos was born in Queens, New York, the child of an Indo-Guyanese father and a Jewish-American mother who met in the 1950s when her father worked for the Indian Consulate in Manhattan. The community she grew up in was built for U.N. families, was an oasis for families seeking to raise their children in a multiracial and multicultural environment. This, along with the world of Indo-Caribbean and Indian friends who surrounded her, profoundly shaped who she is and what she writes about.

Budhos is the author of two novels, "House of Waiting" and "The Professor of Light." A nonfiction book, Remix: Conversations with Immigrant Teenagers, was published in October 1999. Her stories and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review and Dissent. She has also covered international news for Ms., and recently received an EMMA (Exceptional Media Merit Award) for an article about sex tourism to Asia.

Listen now to an special MP3Lit.com recording of Marina Budhos reading an excerpt from "The Professor of Light".