Stephen Alter is the author of fifteen works of fiction and nonfiction, most recently Becoming a Mountain: Himalayan Journeys in Search of the Sacred and the Sublime, winner of the 2015 Kekoo Naoroji Book Award for Himalayan Literature, conferred by the Himalayan Club. His other honors include a Guggenheim fellowship and a Fulbright award. He was writer in residence for ten years at MIT and directed the writing program at the American University in Cairo. He is founding director of the Mussoorie Writers’ Mountain Festival and resides with his wife in Mussoorie, India.