Tanika Gupta

Tanika Gupta was born in London to immigrants from Calcutta, India.[1] Her family had their origins in Dacca (in present-day Bangladesh).[2] As a child, Gupta performed Tagore dance dramas with her parents. Her mother Gairika Gupta was an Indian classically trained dancer, and her father Tapan Gupta was a singer. She is also related to the Indian revolutionary Dinesh Gupta, whose brother was Tanika's grandfather.[3]

After attending Mill Hill School[4] in London, Gupta graduated from Oxford University with a Modern History degree. After Oxford, her political commitment found expression in her work for an Asian women's refuge in Manchester. In 1988, she married David Archer an anti-poverty activist and ActionAid's current Head of Programme Development, whom she met at university. She and her husband then moved to London where Gupta was a community worker in Islington, writing in her spare time.[3]

The Waiting Room (2000) was a career highpoint, enjoyed by blue-rinses as well as by Asian audiences. Gupta is rumoured to be writing a new play for Birmingham Repertory Theatre's Youth Theatre, The Young REP, to be performed in June 2009. She is currently writing a play for the Young Rep, for a group called Plays and New Writing.[5] In 2013, her play The Empress, about Abdul Karim and Queen Victoria opened in Stratford upon Avon. In 2012, she adopted A Doll’s House for BBC Radio 3 transposing the setting to India in 1879, where Nora (renamed 'Niru') is an Indian woman married to Torvald (renamed 'Tom'), an English man working for the British Colonial Administration in Calcutta.[6]

For the BBC's Grange Hill series, Gupta wrote seven episodes between 1997 and 2000.

In 2008, Gupta was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year Honours for her services to drama.[3][7] In June 2016 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2018, Gupta was awarded with the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Drama for her play Lions and Tigers.[8]

• EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award for Best Television Production) (screenplay), for Flight (1998)
• John Whiting Award, for The Waiting Room (2000)
• Asian Women of Achievement Award (Arts and Culture category) (2003)
• EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award for Best Play) (adaptation), for Hobson's Choice (2004)
• Laurence Olivier Nomination for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre, for Fragile Land/Hobson's Choice (2004)
• Amnesty International UK Media Awards (radio play) Chitra (2005)
• Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Birthday Honours (2008)
• BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Adaptation, for A Doll's House (2013)
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (2016)

Gupta and her husband have two daughters, Nandini (born 1991), Niharika (born 1993) and a son Malini (born 2000).[3]

• British Indians
• List of British Indians

• Official website
• Tanika Gupta at IMDb
• Tanika Gupta – In Yer Face Theatre
• "Tanika Gupta", British Council Literature
• 2 Young 2 Luv
• Great Expectations adapted by Tanika Gupta, premieres at Watford Palace Theatre
• "20 Questions With… Tanika Gupta". Whatsonstage 21 January 2008
• Barnett, Laura. "Portrait of the artist: Tanika Gupta, playwright". The Guardian. 14 February 2011
• Tanika Gupta. The Asian Writer. 22 June 2011