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About Justine

Justine Hardy has been a journalist for twenty-four years, many of those spent covering South Asia. She is the author of six 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 as a journalist 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, a warzone and a white hot corner of London 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 an international 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, and 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. In the Valley of Mist, 2009, a return to non-fiction and the subject of Kashmir, charts the first twenty years of the conflict there through the prism of Kashmiri family life. It was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week, and it was Runner-Up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2010.  Justine’s books have been translated into a wide range of languages, from Hindi and Serbian.

Justine also writes for The Financial Times, The Times, various Condé Nast magazines, including Vanity Fair and Condé Nast Traveler. She also writes for The Times of India, and a wide range of other publications in India, the UK and US.

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. She was 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 worked with a local NGO in Kashmir rebuilding homes, schools, and medical centres in some of the worst effected areas, as well as moving into conflict mediation. Having completed her training in conflict trauma therapy, Justine founded Healing Kashmir in 2008, an integrated mental health project addressing the debilitating mental health situation in the region. This project is now expanding rapidly, with a health centre, outreach programmes, a suicide helpline, and a leadership programme. While training in mental health Justine worked with New Bridge in the UK for twenty-two years, a foundation working on the rehabilitation of life sentence prisoners before release. In addition to running the project in Kashmir, she lectures regularly in the UK, US and India. Recent lectures have included The Oslo Freedom Forum, New York University (Gallatin School), Tufts University (Institute of Global Leadership) and The Royal Geographical Society.

Justine has been studying Eastern philosophy, yoga, and conflict trauma all through her adult life. She teaches yoga and philosophy in the UK and in India.