Almas Kabir Hussain was born into an eccentric 43-member Bengali Muslim joint family. She can trace her ancestry to the Nawab of Jalpaiguri on her paternal side and the Nawab of Simri Bakhtiarpur on her maternal side. Hussain is the fifth daughter in a close-knit nuclear family of five girls headed by her feminist Abbu, G. Kabir. She studied at Loreto House and Loreto College, Kolkata and graduated with a BA (English Honours).

Widely travelled, she is fascinated by world literature. She read Creative Writing at Oxford University. For most of her professional life, Hussain worked as an advertising Copy Writer and Graphic Designer. She has been the proprietor of two advertising agencies, Via and Diva. Mesmerised by stories since childhood, she is a voracious reader and typically watches at least one film a day.

Due to the nature of her husband’s transferable job, Hussain has lived in many cities all over the world including Kochi, Bangalore, Jamshedpur, Dhaka, London, Chennai and Teheran, in roughly that order. She currently resides in Kolkata with her husband, Manzer Hussain, and their son, Mikhail. Her daughter, Soraya, lives in London with her husband, Amit, and their son, Kaveer.