Arif Ansari was born in Lucknow and grew up in Aligarh, where his parents, Ghazala Ansari and Anwar Ansari, were faculty members in the Education and Psychology departments at Aligarh Muslim University. He attended Our Lady of Fatima Secondary School and was educated in Electrical Engineering at AMU, Aligarh and SIU, Carbondale, IL. A wireless communication engineer by training and profession, he lives in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. He translates Urdu fiction and non-fiction books into English.