Monisha Rajesh (born 1982) is a British journalist and travel writer.

Early life

Rajesh was born in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...

, England, the child of two Indian doctors. The family moved from

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Tamil Nadu, the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and territories of India, Indian state. The largest city ...

, India, in 1991. After two years, "fed up with soap eating rats, stolen human hearts and hecreepy colonel across the road, we returned to England with a bitter taste in our mouths", and she made only occasional visits to India over the next twenty years: "little more than the occasional family wedding had succeeded in tempting me back". She attended King Edward VI High School for Girls in Birmingham, the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

, and has a postgraduate diploma in magazine journalism from the Department of Journalism, City University.

Career

Rajesh has worked for ''

The Week ''The Week'' is a weekly news magazine with editions in the United Kingdom and United States. The British publication was founded in 1995 and the American edition in 2001. An Australian edition was published from 2008 to 2012. A children's edi ...

'' and written for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'', ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, t ...

''. In 2010, she embarked on a four-month journey around India by train, using 80 train journeys to reach the furthest points of the Indian rail network, described in her 2012 book ''Around India in 80 trains''. She subsequently travelled around the world in another 80 train journeys, writing ''Around the World in 80 Trains'' (2019), which ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

'' listed in 2020 as one of "10 best travel books to satisfy your wanderlust in lockdown". In mid-2021 she, with Sunny Singh and Chimene Suleyman, received racist abuse on social media as a result of raising concerns about depictions of autism and of students of colour in Kate Clanchy's book ''Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me'', with Rajesh characterising some of Clanchy's prose as "dehumanising", "racist", "anti-Black", "

antisemitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Ant ...

" and "more like something a eugenicist might observe than a trusted teacher". The discussion prompted a reaction, including from authors such as

Philip Pullman Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy '' His Dark Materials'' and ''The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ'', a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, ''Th ...

and Amanda Craig, that Rajesh characterised as racist, writing in ''

'' that "a sinister realisation dawned as they closed ranks and appeared to reply to white critics only", with "a group of white women authors pointedly demean ng the women of colour "as 'activists' who were 'attacking' Clanchy". Rajesh also wrote that the 3 women of colour were "under a coordinated racist attack from the ' alt-right' which targeted our emails and social media". Rajesh won the 2020 National Consumer Feature of the Year award of the Travel Media Awards for a piece in ''

'' about the

Trans-Siberian Railway The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the eas ...

. She was one of the judges for the 2021

Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards celebrate the best travel writing and travel writers in the world. The awards include the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year and the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing ...

, after her ''Around the World in 80 Trains'' was shortlisted for the 2020 award.

Selected publications

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References

External links

''Around the world in 80 trains'' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rajesh, Monisha 1982 births Living people British travel writers British women travel writers British journalists British women journalists Alumni of City, University of London