CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Alka Joshi

Indian novelist

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ112712637
Source-derived summary

Alka Joshi is an Indian-American author known for her novel The Henna Artist.

Early life and education

Alka Joshi was born in Jodhpur, India. She and her family moved to the United Statesin 1967, when Joshi was nine.

She received her Bachelor of Arts from Stanford University and her Master of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts.

Career

Joshi began writing her debut novel, The Henna Artist, in 2010 and it was published in 2020. The Henna Artist was the May 2020 pick for Reese's Book Club. It is being made into a TV adaptation by Netflix, starring Freida Pinto.

In 2021, Joshi published her second novel, The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, the sequel to The Henna Artist. The final book in the Jaipur Trilogy, The Perfumist of Paris, came out in 2023.

In 2025, Joshi released Six Days in Bombay, a historical mystery loosely based on the life of Amrita Sher-Gil.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Alka Joshi” is indian novelist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Alka, Joshi and Indian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1967, 2010, 2020, 2021—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1958-02-24. For this dossier, Alka, Joshi and Indian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “indian novelist” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q112712637. VIAF identifies the subject as 17158427954106062112. The Library of Congress control number is no2020034656. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967, 2010, 2020 and 2021.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Alka Joshi”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Alka Joshi primary sources, Alka Joshi archive and Alka research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alka Joshi”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Alka Joshi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.