Profile
Ira began her career as a lecturer in Psychology. Reading English and Hindi literature has always been a passion with her and she indulged in painting landscapes in oil, as a hobby.
After her graduation in Psychology Ira Saxena studied child-behaviour and worked for her doctoral degree. She completed her doctorate in Child Psychology in 1983. Her writing which started with articles in college magazines and local papers took a professional turn as she began to writing stories for children.
She counselled children and parents and wrote stories, novels, non-fiction in Hindi and English. Many of her stories have been published in various story-collections, magazines, textbooks and her own story collection.
Of her publications ‘Caught by Computer’ and ‘The Virus Trap’, both computer crime novels have been popular with children. ‘For the Green Planet’ is a science fiction, ‘Manmauji Mamaji’(in Hindi) relates the humorous adventures of a favourite Uncle, and ‘Gajmukta ki Talaash’(in Hindi) is a tale reinforcing the Gandhian principles of non-violence.
She started exploring themes of adventure writings include adventure novels, computer crime stories and weaving the interesting aspects of developing technology. Eventually writing about the Independence struggle in India her stories and novels portrayed more meaningful adventures (Curse of Grass, Faces in my Cupboard) with an undercurrent of Gandhian thought and non-violence.
The status of children’s literature and the rich cultural heritage of stories caught her attention as she wrote articles and research papers on children’s literature. She is one of the founding members of the Association of Writers and Illustrators for Children (AWIC) which is the Indian Section of IBBY.
She has been actively involved, now for the last 25 years, in various programmes of AWIC, first as a Treasurer and then as the Secretary, organising seminars, exhibitions, developing and editing books. She has participated in many national and international conferences speaking about the aspects of children’s literature and the need for good books. She lived in the UK for a decade, teaching Psychology in college, verbal skills to little ones and participated in conferences on children’s books. She received Unesco study fellowship at the International Youth Library, Munich and studied the Depiction of Indian Characters in English books for children.
She has been on the Board of International Board on Books for Young People, Jury member of the international IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award. Currently, she is spearheading the Book Therapy Project aimed to heal children traumatised by disasters and psycho-social problems through the use of appropriate literature.
Awards and Honours:
Shankar’s Award for Writing 1996 (Gajmukta ki Talaash)
White Raven’s Selection 2000, Germany (The Virus Trap)
