Upamanyu Chatterjee

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Upamanyu Chatterjee
Born1959 (age 64–65)
Patna, Bihar, India
OccupationAuthor
Alma mater St. Xavier's School, Delhi, St. Stephen's College, Delhi
GenreNovel

Upamanyu Chatterjee (born 1959) is an author and a retired Indian civil servant. His works include the novel English, August: An Indian story , The Last Burden , The Mammaries of the Welfare State and Weight Loss . In 2008, he was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contribution to literature. [1]

Contents

Biography

Chatterjee was born in 1959 [2] in Patna, Bihar. [3] [1] He attended Delhi University, graduated from St. Stephens College, and became a 1983 batch Indian Administrative Service officer. [1] [3] He became a Writer in Residence at the University of Kent in 1990. He became a Director in the Ministry of Human Resource Development in India in 1998. [3]

Major works

Chatterjee has written and published short stories since the 1980s, including stories republished in the 2019 collection The Assassination of Indira Gandhi. [4] [5] [6]

His 1988 novel, English, August : An Indian story was adapted into the film English, August. [3] His novel The Last Burden was published in 1993. [5] A sequel to English, August, The Mammaries of the Welfare State was published in 2000. His fourth novel, Weight Loss , a dark comedy, was published in 2006. [5] His fifth novel Way To Go, a sequel to The Last Burden, was published in 2010 [5] and longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. [7] In 2014, he published Fairy Tales at Fifty. [8] [9] Indrapramit Das writes in a review for The Hindu Business Line , "Like a David Lynch film set in India, Upamanyu Chatterjee’s latest book is a monstrous fairytale that respects the darkness of the real world." [10] In 2018, his novella The Revenge of the Non-vegetarian was published. [11] [12] Pratik Kanjilal writes in a review for The Indian Express , "In a way, it is a back story to his first novel". [13] Uddalak Mukherjee writes in a review for The Telegraph , "Writers cannot be faulted for turning towards their most successful work for inspiration after dishing out a few ordinary books", and "The result [...] is a pacy, tautly-written narrative." [14]

In The Hindu , Anjana Sharma equates Upamanyu's vision of humanity with W.B. Yeats. She writes, "Eighty years apart, cultures, civilisations, even craft and temperament apart, Yeats and Chatterjee share an identical vision of a de-centered, de-natured world." [15] Mukul Dikshit opines that Chatterjee has, for the first time, focused on a "new class" of Westernised urban Indians who were hitherto ignored in the regional as well as the English fiction of India.[ citation needed ]

Awards

In 2009, he was awarded Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of his "exemplary contribution to contemporary literature" [16] In 2004, he was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for The Mammaries of the Welfare State. [17] The novel Way To Go was shortlisted for The Hindu Best Fiction Award in 2010.

Bibliography

NamePublisherISBNPublishing dateNotes
English, August : An Indian story Faber & Faber,

Rupa & Co,

NYRB Classics

Hardback: ISBN   0-571-15101-9

Paperback: ISBN   0-14-027811-7

Reprint: ISBN   1-59017-179-9

First published June 1988.

Reprint by NYRB Classics 2006

Hailed as the definitive urban Indian coming-of-age novel
The Last Burden Faber & Faber Hardback: ISBN   0-571-16825-6 16 August 1993
The Mammaries of the Welfare State Viking ISBN   0-670-87934-7 2000Sequel to English August
Weight Loss Penguin Books IndiaPaperback: ISBN   0-670-05862-9 28 February 2006
Way to GoPenguin Books IndiaHardback: ISBN   978-0-670-08352-7 15 February 2011Sequel to The Last Burden
Fairy Tales at FiftyHarper Collins IndiaHardback: ISBN   9789351363132 15 November 2014
Lorenzo Searches for the Meaning of LifeSpeaking TigerHardback: ISBN   978-9354476211 5 February 2024Winner, JCB Prize

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Sharma, Rupinder (21 March 2010). "A new chapter". The Telegraph . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  2. ↑ Dirda, Michael (23 April 2006). "ENGLISH, AUGUST". The Washington Post . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Library of Congress New Delhi Office. "Upamanyu Chatterjee, 1959–". The South Asian Literary Recordings Project. US Library of Congress.
  4. ↑ Sipahimalani, Sanjay (12 May 2019). "A collection of Upamanyu Chatterjee's short stories embodies his signature writing against the grain". Scroll.in . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Bhattacharya, Soumya (8 June 2019). "Review: The Assassination of Indira Gandhi; The Collected Stories of Upamanyu Chatterjee". Hindustan Times . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  6. ↑ Banerjie, Indranil (28 July 2019). "Book Review: A master at the height of his craft presents curious bouquet of styles". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  7. ↑ Kehe, Marjorie (14 December 2010). "10 Asian authors you need to know: the Man Asian Literary Prize longlist". The Christian Science Monitor . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  8. ↑ Kanjilal, Pratik (7 December 2014). "In Fairy tales at Fifty, Upamanyu Chatterjee serves up characters who are cruel and vile". The Indian Express . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  9. ↑ Kuruvilla, Elizabeth (13 December 2014). "Book Review: Fairy Tales at Fifty". Mint . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  10. ↑ Das, Indrapramit (24 January 2018). "An anti-celebration". Business Line . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  11. ↑ Gupta, Trisha (4 August 2018). "Upamanyu Chatterjee's new novel is a minimalist study of revenge (and features Agastya Sen's father)". Scroll.in . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  12. ↑ Bhardwaj, Deeksha (29 July 2018). "Upamanyu Chatterjee's novella turns the lynching narrative into one of cold-blooded murder". ThePrint . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  13. ↑ Kanjilal, Pratik (16 June 2018). "A Meaty Issue". The Indian Express . Retrieved 30 July 2021.
  14. ↑ Mukherjee, Uddalak (10 August 2018). "The Revenge of the Non-Vegetarian resurrects Upamanyu Chatterjee". The Telegraph . Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  15. ↑ Sharma, Anjana. "What others have to say about Upamanyu Chatterjee". Upamanyu Chatterjee at the complete review. Retrieved 26 June 2011.
  16. ↑ "Upamanyu Chatterjee Gets French Award Officier Des Arts Et Des Lettres" . Retrieved 26 June 2011.
  17. ↑ UNI (22 December 2004). "Sahitya Akademi award winners". The Hindu . Archived from the original on 30 December 2004. Retrieved 26 June 2011.
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