Indu Sundaresan  Indu Sundaresan is an Indian-American author of historical fiction. Her first novel "The Twentieth Wife" is about how a young widow named Mehrunissa, daughter of Persian refugees and wife of an Afghan commander, becomes Empress of the Mughal Empire under the name of Nur Jahan. Her second novel "The Feast of Roses" is the sequel to "The Twentieth Wife". She is also the author of "The Splendor of Silence", historical fiction set in a fictional Indian princely state just before Indian independence in 1947. Her short fiction has appeared in The Vincent Brothers Review and on iVillage.com. She was born and raised in India as a daughter of an Indian Air Force pilot, who died in a crash while on duty. The family then moved to Bangalore where she collected books eagerly. She then migrated to the United States for graduate studies at the University of Delaware. She has an MS in operations research and an MA in economics. She is married and lives in Seattle, Washington with her husband and daughter.