Bilal Siddiqi is a novelist and screenwriter based in Mumbai. He is the author of The Stardust Affair, The Kiss of Life (co-written with actor Emraan Hashmi) and The Bard of Blood, a spy novel which he wrote when he was nineteen and which was adapted by Red Chillies Entertainment into a Netflix show. Siddiqi was also the creator of this show and worked on the screenplay. The Phoenix is his fourth book.