Tahmima Anam was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1975, and grew up in Paris, New York City, and Bangkok, as a consequence of her father’s career with the Unicef. She completed her undergraduate education at Mount Holyoke College in 1997. She trained as an anthropologist, earning a PhD from Harvard University, USA. In 2005 she completed an MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway, University of London. Anam is the recipient of a Writing Fellowship from the Arts Council of England. She presently lives in West Hampsted, London.

Anam comes from an illustrious literary family in Bangladesh. Her father Mahfuz Anam is the editor and publisher of The Daily Star , Bangladesh's most prominent English newspaper. Her grandfather Abul Mansur Ahmed was a renowned satirist and politician whose works in Bengali remain popular to this day.

Anam's first novel was published in March, 2007, by John Murray. Tahmima picked the Bangladesh Liberation War as her first subject to write the novel A Golden Age. She was inspired by her parents who were freedom fighters during the war. Tahmima also researched the war which covered the central part of her post graduation. For the benefit of her research, she stayed in Bangladesh for two years and interviewed hundreds of war fighters. She also worked on the set of Tareque and Catherine Masud’s critically acclaimed film Matir Moina (The Clay Bird) which reflects the happenings during that war.

As of 2008, Anam, a Londoner, is author and contributing editor of New Statesman of UK.