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About Justine

Justine Hardy has been a journalist for twenty-one years, many of those spent covering South Asia. She is the author of five books ranging in subject from war to Hindi film: The Ochre Border, 1995, was about the reopening of the Tibetan frontier-lands. Her second Scoop-Wallah, 1999, was the story of her time on an Indian newspaper in Delhi. It was short-listed for the Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award 2000 and serialised on BBC Radio 4. Goat: A Story of Kashmir and Notting Hill, 2000, was an inside look at life in Kashmir and Notting Hill, two places drawn together by the latter’s obsession with the fine pashmina weave of the Kashmir Valley. This was also serialised on BBC Radio 4. Bollywood Boy, 2002, was a bestseller in which the Hindi film industry was the vehicle for a closer look at the obsession with fame as it crept West to East, as well as a closer look at the darker side of an industry pumping out high-octane escapism for an audience of over a billion. The Wonder House, 2005, is a novel set in Kashmir against the background of the conflict, and based on Justine’s experience of frontline coverage, time spent in militant training camps, and amongst the extremists. It was short-listed for the Author’s Club best first novel in 2006. Her books have been translated into nine languages including Hindi and Serbian.

Justine writes for The Financial Times. She also freelances for The Times, various Condé Nast magazines such as Vanity Fair and Traveler, as well as other publications.

As a documentary maker and presenter she started at Channel 4 in 1996 on BAFTA-nominated series Urban Jungle. She has worked on several BBC strands in India for both BBC and BBC World. Justine was a presenter on Travel TV for four years. Her most recent work was as a co-presenter with Jerry Hall on a series about Eastern philosophy’s journey West for BBC.

Justine is a director of the NGO in India that she wrote about in Goat. Development Research and Action Group sets up schools in slum areas of Delhi that have been over-looked by the bigger international agencies, usually because of the problems of slum politics. After the earthquake in Kashmir in October 2005 Justine was involved in setting up an NGO with some Kashmiri friends in The Valley. The Kashmir Welfare Trust is building homes, schools and medical centres in some of the worst effected areas, as well as moving into conflict mediation. In England Justine is part of New Bridge, a foundation working on the rehabilitation of life sentence prisoners before release.

Justine has been studying Eastern philosophy and yoga all through her adult life. She teaches yoga and philosophy in the UK and in India, both in Delhi and in the schools that The Kashmir Welfare Trust has in The Valley.