Chatura Rao

Chatura Rao writes stories for children and long-form articles about the goings-on in the world. Her latest book is Leaf People, a novella about a brother, a sister, and a mysterious walking bush. 

Chatura’s older picture books, Gone Grandmother and The Sweet Shop Wars, have won literary prizes. Her journalistic writing centres around community practices and gender, and has won regional and national awards. She is a visiting faculty at the Srishti-Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology. 

She served as the Children’s Honour Books curator at the Green Literature Festival 2025, and has enjoyed being the Festival Director of the Chandigarh Children’s Literature Festival since 2015.  Chatura lives in a quiet suburb in Bangalore, occasionally leaving it to look for a new story or to help young people write their own original ones. She hopes everyone will spot magic in the ordinary long after they grow up!