Lev Grossman is the author of five books, perhaps most notably his series beginning with "The Magicians." Described by almost every critic out there perhaps unfairly as "Harry Potter for adults." Born in June of 1969 he was introduced early to the works of C.S. Lewis and went on to spend years as a teenager playing Dungeons and Dragons. He has a day job as the book critic for Time Magazine. But lives a life engrossed in fantasy -- a passion he now shares with a legion of fans. "I bristle whenever fantasy is characterised as escapism," he says, "I think fantasy is a powerful tool for coming to an understanding of oneself."

Once described as an obscure Cambridge lecturer after a high-level academic spat on live British radio in truth Priyamvada Gopal is anything but. There are few public intellectuals who think and write on the subjects of India and colonialism with as much influence and insight. A reader with the University of Cambridge in Anglophone and related literature she has a Ph.D. from Cornell and specialises in colonial and post-colonial literature. Priya Gopal has said that "since dictators, war criminals and bankers also read Shakespeare we can't claim that literature will inevitably make society more humane and imaginative. But it does engage most people's ethical capacities."