Born in London in 1942 to mixed Indian-Swiss parentage, Meira Chand is a novelist of international standing who moved to Singapore in 1997. Her work explores the position of the outsider, spiritual isolation, the search for identity and conflicts of culture. Her historical novel, A Different Sky, her first to be set in Singapore, was longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2012.

The daughter of a Punjabi doctor and Swiss housewife Meira Chand was educated in England, including at St Martin’s School of Art & Design. She first trained as a painter and textile designer, but had always been creating stories in her head for as long as she could remember. As a child, she would tell herself stories at night till she fell asleep.

In 1962, she moved with her husband to Japan, where she would spend most of her adult life. In the early 1970s, she would spend five years in Bombay, India, where she came to discover her Indian heritage. It was in Bombay that she found that writing was the only medium with which she could give voice to her experiences, and she began writing short stories. When she returned to Japan, she would start her professional career as a novelist with her first novel The Gossamer Fly, which was published in 1979. She published five more novels by the time she moved to Singapore in 1997, where she would contribute significantly to the literary scene.

On top of her writing, Chand has been, and continues to be, involved in many programmes to promote literature and mentor young writers in Singapore. She has served over a decade as an assessor and mentor in the National University of Singapore Centre for the Arts Creative Writing Programme, and served as a member of the steering committee for READ! Singapore by the National Library Board. Additionally, she chairs the English sub-committee for READ! Singapore.

She has also contributed her time and expertise in the organising committee of the Congress of Asian Writers in English by the National Book Development Council of Singapore and in the steering committee of the Singapore Writers Festival. She was a member of the Arts Resource Panel for National Arts Council and chairperson of the Singapore Literature Prize in 2012. Regionally, Chand served as the regional chair for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the South East Asia and South Pacific region.

In 2011, she received a Special Recognition Award from the Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts, Singapore.

She is the author of eight novels. Five are set in chiefly in Japan—The Gossamer Fly (1979), Last Quadrant (1981), The Bonsai Tree (1983), The Painted Cage (1986), and the war novel A Choice of Evils (1996). Her novels House of the Sun (1989) and A Far Horizon (2001) are both set in India. The Bonsai Tree and The Painted Cage were longlisted for the Booker Prize in the years they were published. House of the Sun was adapted for the British stage in 1990, where it was the first Asian play with an all-Asian cast and direction. Later it was also broadcast on UK television. Her novels are the results of the confluence of different cultures, with strong themes of identity and belonging.

Her eighth novel, A Different Sky (2010), written over eight years and based on meticulous historical research, came about after a conversation with former Singapore president S R Nathan in 1999, who suggested that she write about Singapore. The novel follows the lives of three families in the 30 years leading up to Singapore’s independence. A Different Sky was included on popular US personality Oprah Winfrey’s recommended reading list in November 2011 and longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2012.

Chand continues to write and is currently working on a volume of short stories and a novel.

In December 2023, Chand received the Cultural Medallion for her contributions to Singapore literature.