Monisha Rajesh

Monisha Rajesh is a British journalist and travel writer.

Rajesh was born in Norfolk, England, the child of two Indian doctors. The family moved from Sheffield to Madras, India, in 1991. After two years, "fed up with soap eating rats, stolen human hearts and [the] creepy colonel across the road, we returned to England with a bitter taste in our mouths", and she made only occasional visits to India over the next twenty years: "little more than the occasional family wedding had succeeded in tempting me back". She has a postgraduate diploma in magazine journalism from the Department of Journalism, City University.

Rajesh has worked for The Week and written for The Guardian,The Times, The New York Times and TIME.

In 2010, she embarked on a four-month journey around India by train, using 80 train journeys to reach the furthest points of the Indian rail network, described in her 2012 book Around India in 80 trains.

She subsequently travelled around the world in another 80 train journeys, writing Around the World in 80 trains.

• Rajesh, Monisha (2012). Around India in 80 trains. Nicholas Brealey. ISBN 978-1-85788-595-8.
• Rajesh, Monisha (2019). Around the World in 80 trains. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1408869758.