Amit Chaudhuri

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Amit Chaudhuri, 2014

Amit Chaudhuri ( Bengali : অমিত চৌধুরী , Amit Caudhurī ; * 1962 in Kolkata , West Bengal ) is an Indian writer and musician . He writes in English and has received several international awards.

Life

Chaudhuri was born in Kolkata in 1962 and grew up in Mumbai . He studied English at University College London and received his PhD with a thesis on DH Lawrence from Balliol College , Oxford . Between 1992 and 1999 he taught at Oxford and Cambridge and during this time lived between India and England. He lectured on English-language literature at various English and American universities and worked as a literary critic for well-known newspapers. He had published his first novel A Strange and Sublime Address in 1991. In 1999 Chaudhuri returned to Kolkata, where he has lived ever since. In 2002 he was visiting professor at Columbia University and in 2005 at Freie Universität Berlin . Chaudhuri is married and has one daughter.

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literature

Chaudhuri's novels are mostly set in the middle-class milieu of major Indian cities and are characterized by a realistic narrative style. They often do not have a distinct plot and deal intensively with everyday events in the life of their protagonists. Serious events are rare and are usually mentioned in passing. This apparent lack of events, into which detailed descriptions and observations are integrated, has in part been compared to the work of Marcel Proust or James Joyce . Many of Chaudhuri's characters come from an academic background.

His debut novel A Strange and Sublime Address , published in 1991, dealt with a Bengali boy from Mumbai visiting relatives in Kolkata. The focus of the novel is on descriptions of daily rituals through the eyes of the protagonist. The novel was received extremely positively by international critics and received two prizes. Chaudhuri's second publication, Afternoon Raag , describes the life and acquaintances of an Indian student at Oxford and is steeped in memories of India. It is his only book to date that is narrated in the first person throughout. The Freedom Song , published in 1998, describes the relationship between two Indian families. The follow-up novel A New World is the only one so far whose main character faces India as a stranger: Jayojit Chatterjee has lived in the United States for several years and is now visiting his home country with his son, who no longer even speaks the Bengali language .

In addition to his novels, Chaudhuri has also published a volume of short stories and a volume of poetry, which, however, received less positive feedback from the critics. Some of the poems were described as narcissistic . He was also the editor of the anthology The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature , in which he compiled short biographies and excerpts from various contemporary Indian writers for the English-speaking audience. The book was praised above all for taking into account non-English-speaking and internationally less well-known authors, in contrast to comparable anthologies.

Chaudhuri names VS Naipaul , DH Lawrence and Jacques Derrida as important influences for his work , with whom he also dealt in theoretical writings.

music

Chaudhuri is also active as a singer in the field of classical North Indian music . To date, he has released two CDs that have received mostly positive reviews. He brings Indian music together with Western influences such as rock and jazz . He does not strive for a fusion of the two traditions, but tries, according to his own statements, to find parallels between the two musical styles that he has known since childhood. By relating them to one another, he would like to give listeners from the other cultural area access. He works with musicians from both traditions. Chaudhuri had numerous international appearances with his bands.

bibliography

prose

  • A Strange and Sublime Address. 1991. (Eng. A strange and lofty address )
  • Afternoon Raag. 1993. (German raga of the afternoon )
  • Freedom song. 1998. (German The Melody of Freedom )
  • A New World. 2000. (Eng. A Summer in Calcutta )
  • Real Time: Stories and a Reminiscence. 2002. (German infatuations and pious lies )
  • The Immortals. 2009.
    • Mrs. Sengupta aims high. Novel. From the English by Barbara Heller. Blessing, Munich 2011.
  • Odysseus Abroad . Oneworld, 2015.

Poetry

  • St. Cyril Road and Other Poems. 2005.

Essays and criticism

  • Picador / Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature. 2001. (as editor)
  • DH Lawrence and 'Difference': Postcoloniality and the Poetry of the Present. 2003.
  • Small orange flags. 2003.
  • Clearing A Space: Reflections on India, Literature and Culture. 2008.
  • Memory's Gold: Writings on Calcutta. 2008.
  • Calcutta: Two Years in the City. 2013.

CD publications

  • Hindustani Classical
  • This is not fusion (2007).

Prices

literature

  • Winfried Wehle : Europe is not worth mentioning: Amit Chaudhuri's 'A new world'; a post-colonial obituary on an ancient continent. In: Brigitte Glaser, Hermann J. Schnackertz (Ed.): Europe interdisciplinary: Problems and perspectives of today's European studies. Würzburg 2005, pp. 169-179. (PDF)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Padma Chandrasekaran: Amit Chaudhuri. In: Jaina C. Sanga (Ed.): South Asian Literature in English. Greenwood, Westport 2004, p. 46ff.
  2. ↑ a b Portrait of the Free University of Berlin ( memento from January 18, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) seen on October 16, 2009.
  3. ↑ Portrait on contemporarywriters.com ( Memento of the original from June 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , as seen on October 19, 2009.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.contemporarywriters.com
  4. ^ Ivan Hewett: At the British Museum. ( Memento from January 13, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) seen on October 16, 2009.
personal data
SURNAME Chaudhuri, Amit
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian writer and musician
DATE OF BIRTH 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Kolkata