Amit Chaudhuri Popular Books

Amit Chaudhuri Biography & Facts

Amit Chaudhuri (born 15 May 1962) is a novelist, poet, essayist, literary critic, editor, singer, and music composer from India. He was Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia from 2006 to 2021, Since 2020, he has been at Ashoka University, India, as Professor of Creative Writing and, since 2021, is also Director of the Centre for the Creative and the Critical, Ashoka University. Life Amit Chaudhuri was born in Calcutta (renamed Kolkata) in 1962 and grew up in Bombay (renamed Mumbai). His father was the first Indian CEO of Britannia Industries Limited. His mother, Bijoya Chaudhuri, was a highly acclaimed singer of Rabindra Sangeet, Nazrulgeeti, Atul Prasad and Hindi bhajans. He was a student at the Cathedral and John Connon School, Bombay. He took his first degree in English literature from University College London, and wrote his doctoral dissertation on D. H. Lawrence's poetry at Balliol College, Oxford. He is married to Rosinka Chaudhuri, Professor of Cultural Studies and Director of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC). They have one daughter. Chaudhuri began writing a series for The Paris Review titled The Moment from January 2018. He also wrote an occasional column, "Telling Tales", for The Telegraph. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry Fiction A Strange and Sublime Address, Chaudhuri's first novel, published in 1991, was republished by Penguin Random House India in 2016 as a 25th anniversary edition, with a foreword by Colm Toibin. Afternoon Raag,  his second novel, interleaves experiences of Oxford with memories of Bombay. It was published in 1993 and won the Encore Award. The 25th anniversary edition was published by Penguin Random House India in 2019 with a foreword by James Wood. Freedom Song, his third novel, was published four years later. Set against the background of the post-Babri Masjid demolition, it is a record of both the artificial quiet that such a socio-political situation creates as well as the evocation of a Calcutta winter where everyday life must go on. Published in America with the first two novels, in 2000 it won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A New World (2001), Chaudhuri's fourth novel, tells the story of Jayojit Chatterjee, who returns after a divorce with his seven-year-old son Vikram ("Bonny") to Calcutta to visit his aging parents. It won the Sahitya Akademi Award. Real Time, Chaudhuri's collection of short fiction, was published in 2002. The title story, "Real Time", is prescribed reading for English in the GCSE syllabus in the UK. The Immortals, his fifth novel, published in 2009, follows Nirmalya and his music teacher, Shyamji, as they learn and practice Indian classical music in a changing world. Odysseus Abroad, Chaudhuri's sixth novel, appeared in 2014–15. It unfolds over the course of a single day, in July in 1985 London, following the student protagonist, Ananda. Friend of My Youth is Chaudhuri's seventh novel. It was published in the UK and India in 2017 and in the US in 2019. It is an account of a narrator and novelist called Amit Chaudhuri who visits Bombay, a city where he grew up, for a book event. Sojourn, Chaudhuri's eighth novel, was published in 2022. Here, an unnamed man arrives in Berlin as a visiting professor. His growing absorption in his surrounding is accompanied by a loosening of his grasp on memory. Non-fiction Chaudhuri's D.Phil. dissertation at Oxford was published by Clarendon Press as a monograph titled D.H. Lawrence and Difference in 2003. It was called a "classic" by Tom Paulin in his preface to the book, and a "path-breaking work" by Terry Eagleton in the London Review of Books. Chaudhuri edited the influential anthology The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature in 2001. He also edited Memory's Gold: Writings on Calcutta (2008) His first major work of non-fiction, Calcutta: Two Years in the City, was published in 2013 as was Telling Tales, his second book of essays. On Tagore, a collection of Chaudhuri's essays on Rabindranath Tagore, was awarded the Rabindra Puraskar in 2012. Origins of Dislike, a third collection of essays, was published in 2019. Literary Activism, a collection of essays by a variety of participants at the first symposium of the same name (see below), was published in 2017 by Boiler House Press in the UK, and by OUP in India and the US. Finding the Raga, an exploration of Hindustani classical music, was published by Faber in the UK, NYRB Books in the US and Penguin in India in 2021. Poetry St. Cyril Road and Other Poems, Chaudhuri's first collection of poems, was published in 2005 by Penguin in India. Sweet Shop, his second book of poems, appeared from Penguin Random House India in 2018, and from Salt (UK) in 2019. Ramanujan, his third collection of poems, was published by Shearsman Books in the UK  in 2021. Critical responses James Wood, writing about Chaudhuri in The New Yorker, said: "He has beautifully practiced that 'refutation of the spectacular' throughout his career, both as a novelist and as a critic. ... how little Chaudhuri forces anything on us — there is no obvious plot, no determined design, no faked 'conflict' or other drama ... The effect is closer to documentary than to fiction; gentle artifice — selection, pacing, occasional dialogue — hides overt artifice. The author seems to say, Here he is; what do you think? The literary pleasure is a human pleasure, as we slowly encounter this strolling, musing, forceful self." Afternoon Raag: "It is a meditation, a felicitous prose poem." Karl Miller, The Independent. A New World: "The condition of a stranger in a familiar land is dramatized with beguiling simplicity and tact in this deeply moving fourth novel.... A pitch-perfect analysis of repressed and stunted emotion, and another triumph to set beside those of Desai, Rushdie, Roy, and especially (the Chekhovian master Chaudhuri most closely resembles) R.K. Narayan." Kirkus Reviews The Immortals: "Amit Chaudhuri, himself a composer and musician, excels in the passages devoted to music, "the miracle of song and its pleasure". Steven Poole, The Guardian. Odysseus Abroad: "Chaudhuri is a singular writer. He defies form; instead he has perfected an observational fiction based on insight and memory." Eileen Battersby, Irish Times. Telling Tales: "Chaudhuri's intellectual project is not so much to cross academic boundaries as to remove the sign that says: "No playing on the grass". Like Barthes (and Lacan), he sees merit in concentrating less on the meaningful and more on the apparently meaningless." Deborah Levy in the New Statesman Friend of My Youth: "With the publication of Friend of My Youth, Amit Chaudhuri is now the author of seven novels, greatly admired, especially by his peers... The drama of the self, spun from Chaudhuri's meditations and recollections, is artfully composed and utterly absorbing." Kate Webb in the Times Literary Supplement. Sojourn: "Chaudhuri is one of the most consistently interesting wr.... Discover the Amit Chaudhuri popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Amit Chaudhuri books.