Bidisha is a writer, critic and broadcaster and was recently made a Trustee of the Booker Prize Foundation. Currently reporting on international development for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as part of a year long fellowship, she specialises in the arts and culture, social justice issues and international relations. She has judged the Orange Prize, the BBC World Cinema Awards, the Comment Awards, the Foyles Book of Ideas prize, the John Llewellyn Prize and the Somerset Maugham prize and is a presenter for BBC Radio 4, Radio 3 and the World Service as well as a regular TV commentator. She is the author of two novels, an Italian travelogue and a Middle Eastern reportage. Her fifth book, Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices of London, about asylum seekers and refugees will be published next year.