Smith, Priya was born in Pune to a Maharashtrian schoolteacher and a British electrical engineer and grew up between India and the UK. She studied history at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and completed a master's degree in South Asian studies at SOAS, University of London. A former features reporter for national dailies in India, she has also worked on oral history projects documenting the Emergency era and neighborhood archives in Old Delhi. Since 2013 she has lived in Toronto, where she mentors immigrant writers and serves on the advisory board of a South Asian women's arts collective. Her short fiction has appeared in literary magazines in India, Canada, and the UK, and her debut collection, Monsoon Letters, was shortlisted for a regional first book prize.
