Peggy Mohan was born in Trinidad, West Indies, studied linguistics at the University of the West Indies, and completed her PhD in linguistics from the University of Michigan (1978). She has taught linguistics at Howard University, Washington D.C., Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Ashoka University, and mass communications at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She is the author of three novels, Jahajin (2008), The Youngest Suspect (2012), and Walk in C Minor (2015), and the non-fiction books Wanderers, Kings, Merchants (2021), which won the Mathrubhumi Book of the Year Award, and Father Tongue, Motherland (2025). She lives in New Delhi.