Sooni Taraporevala was born in 1957 in Bombay, India. After studying at Queen Mary School in Bombay, she received a scholarship to attend Harvard University, where she studied English Literature, Film and Photography. She received her BA from Harvard in 1980 after which she enrolled in the Cinema Studies Department at New York University. At NYU she studied Film Theory and Criticism, received her MA in 1981, after which she returned to India to work as a freelance still photographer.

Her photographs have been exhibited in India, the United States, France, and Britain.

In 1986 she wrote her first screenplay, Salaam Bombay!, for director/producer Mira Nair. Salaam Bombay! won 25 awards worldwide, was nominated for an Oscar, and earned Taraporevala the Lillian Gish Award from Women in Film.

Her second screenplay, Mississippi Masala, also for Mira Nair, won the Osella award for Best Screenplay at the 1991 Venice Film Festival. She lived in Los Angeles from 1988-1991 and wrote numerous scripts commissioned by a variety of producers/directors/studios. She moved back to India in 1992.

Her other produced writing credits include the films Such a Long Journey, based on the novel by Rohinton Mistry and directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, which earned Taraporevala a Genie nomination from the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television; My Own Country, based on the book by Dr.Abraham Verghese and directed by Mira Nair for Showtime television which earned her a Shine nomination; and the film Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar directed by Dr. Jabbar Patel for the Government of India and the National Film Development Corporation of India.

In 2000 she published a book of her photographs PARSIS: The Zoroastrians of India; A Photographic Journey. A labor of love for over 20 years, the book, a critical and popular success, was out of print within six months. A new edition was published by Overlook Press, NY and Duckworth, UK in 2004 and is currently in print.

Currently she has adapted Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake for Mira Nair. The film is expected to have a 2006 release.

She lives in Bombay with her husband Dr. Firdaus Bativala, a dental surgeon and a passionate aviator, and their two children, Jahan and Iyanah who attend Bombay International School.