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Nina Joshi Ramsey
Nina Joshi Ramsey was born in London to itinerant migrant parents from British India who travelled with work, and finally settled in British East Africa. Joshi Ramsey left Kenya as...view moreNina Joshi Ramsey was born in London to itinerant migrant parents from British India who travelled with work, and finally settled in British East Africa. Joshi Ramsey left Kenya as a teenager with her family, following an attack on their home after a violent attempted military coup. Her account of that won a place in the 2nd Decibel Penguin Literary Prize Anthology.
Following a career in technology Management and an MA in Creative Writing and a PGDip in Psychology, Joshi Ramsey's debut novel, Lifewalla, was inspired by true events of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Disaster. Bollywood song and dance are embraced in the book as much as all over India for their role of entertainment and escapism. The UK edition of the book raises funds for survivor clinics in Bhopal (Lifewalla.org). Amongst recommendations is one from Professor Jamie Hacker Hughes, President of the British Psychological Society, who considers Lifewalla 'a very human book' that 'really gets inside the psychology of disasters and the consequences they wreak'.
A professional reading of Joshi Ramsey's play, 'Familiar Strangers' was produced by Kali Theatre at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden as part of Talkback 2016, with the stellar cast of Ameet Chana, Shaheen Khan and Clare Perkins. Going back in time the play reveals once close bonds that were severed when a mother won't accept her son's choice of a black partner. With themes exploring otherness in sameness, the play weaves humour and pain, as well as the Mother's obsession with Bollywood's Shahrukh Khan. The story unpicks prejudice to explore the familiar in strangers, and the strangeness in the familiar. A short film script, 'Hari & the Three Misfits' is in development.
Joshi Ramsey has travelled to over 40 countries for pleasure as well as for work: from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and from waitressing to cleaning motel rooms, from wiping slum children's bums and tums to writing glum experiences of the marginalised, from interviewing model desert dwellers to cajoling rogue city dwellers, from auditing broken banking systems to managing global technology groups, from leading performance coaching sessions to professionals to giving stress management workshops to students. Amongst that she has trained male prisoners in listening skills and village woman in birth control. She was a digital volunteer co-ordinating rescue efforts for those stranded in the Langtang valley during the 2015 Nepal earthquakes, and encourages others to sign up to such efforts. 'Even an hour a week. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.'
Her writing is informed by the sum of her experiences. Joshi Ramsey lives in London with her husband and their imaginary dogview less