Poile Sengupta was born in 1948 as Ambika Gopalakrishnan. Today she is one of the foremost [1] Indian writers in English especially well known as a playwright and writer for children.
She has been a college lecturer, a senior school teacher, an educational consultant, a communication and language skills consultant, a consultant editor for a market research firm, and more recently a teacher for Montessori school children.
She has published a number of books for children including The Exquisite Balance[2] (1985), The Way to My Friend's House (1988), The Story of the Road (1993), How the Path Grew (1997)- (all Children's Book Trust, New Delhi), The Clever Carpenter and Other Stories, The Naughty Dog and Other Stories, and The Black Snake and Other Stories (all Frank Brothers, New Delhi, 1993), Waterflowers (Scholastic, 2000), Vikram and Vetal (2006) and Vikramaditya's Throne(2007)(Puffin).
Her stories for children have been included in important anthologies like The Puffin Treasury of Modern Indian Stories, The Puffin Book of Funny Stories, Favourite Stories for Boys and Favourite Stories for Girls, from Puffin, More Mystery Stories (1989), Sorry, Best Friend (1996) and One World, both from Tulika, the Target Annuals (1989,1990)and The Best of Target
She has written a number of columns for children, the longest running of which, A Letter to You, ran in the weekly, latermonthly magazine Children's World for over twenty years. Another column of hers, Role Call, which appeared weekly in the Deccan Herald, was recently published in two volumes Role Call (2003) and Role Call Again (2003).
As a playwright, her first full-length play, Mangalam, won the award for the most socially relevant theme in The Hindu-Madras Players playscripts competition in 1993. Since then she has written a number of plays for both adults and children including Inner Laws (1994), , A Pretty Business (1995), Keats Was A Tuber (1996), Collages(1998), Alipha (2001) and Thus Spake Shoorpanakha, So Said Shakuni (2001) and Yavamajakka( a musical for children) (2000). In 2008, Samara's Song was shortlisted for the Hindu Metro Plus Playwright award.[3] A collection of her plays for children, Good Heavens! has been brought out by Puffin (2006)
In 1991, a collection of her poetry, A Woman Speaks, was published by Writers Workshop, Calcutta.
In addition, Poile has been an accomplished actor on stage and in film (The Outhouse). She is the founder of Theatre Club, a Bangalore-based amateur theatre group.