Naben Ruthnum is an Indian-Mauritian-Canadian author born to Mauritian parents with roots in the Indian subcontinent. He was born in Winnipeg, Canada, and spent his childhood in Kelowna, British Columbia. Ruthnum earned an MA in English Literature from McGill University, Montreal, and wrote his thesis on Oscar Wilde and the British Ghost Stories. He currently resides in Toronto and writes in his own name and his pen name, Nathan Ripley. His first two novels, Find You in the Dark (2018) and Your Life is Mine (2019), are psychological thrillers and were published under his pen name. His non-fictional memoir-essay, Curry: Eating, Reading, and Race (2017), and his later fiction, A Hero of Our Time: A Novel (2022), the novella Helpmeet (2022), and the paranormal young adult fiction, The Grimmer (2023), were published under his name. His first short story, “Cinema Rex,” was originally published in the literary magazine The Malahat Review and won the Writer’s Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize in 2013. He has been a National Post books columnist and written cultural criticism for the Globe and Mail, Hazlitt, and the Walrus. His crime fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Joyland. He also writes for film and television. He was granted a Writer-in-Residence at Sheridan College, Ontario, for 2022–2023.