Christopher Raja migrated from Kolkata to Melbourne in 1986. He has lived and worked in Alice Springs since 2004. His writings (short stories and essays) have appeared in numerous publications. His co-authored play (with Natasha Raja) – ‘The First Garden’ – was performed in botanical gardens around Australia and published by Currency Press in 2012. His debut novel – The Burning Elephant (published by Giramondo, 2015) was written under a New Work grant awarded by the Literature Board of the Australia Council. He has been twice shortlisted for the Northern Territory Writers Centre’s Chief Minister’s Book of the Year award. In 2016, Chris appeared at the Ubud writer’s festival in Bali and ‘The Burning Elephant’ was launched in China at the 9th annual international conference of the Asia Pacific Writers and Translators, Guangzhou.