Upamanyu Chatterjee

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Upamanyu Chatterjee (born December 19, 1959 in Patna , Bihar ) is an Indian- Bengali writer and administrative officer who is known for his work in the context of the Indian administrative authorities, in particular through his novel "English, August".

Chatterjee attended St. Xavier's School and St. Stephen's College in Delhi . In 1983 he started working for the Indian Administrative Service ( Maharashtra cadre).

plant

Chatterjee has written a few short stories, of which The Assassination of Indira Gandhi and Watching Them stand out. His bestseller English, August: An Indian Story (with subsequent film adaptation) was published in 1988 and has since been published in increasing numbers. A review in British Punch magazine describes the book as "wonderfully written [...] 'English, August' is a fantastically intelligent and entertaining novel, especially for anyone curious about India's present day". The novel tells the story of Agastya Sen, a young, westernized Indian civil servant whose fantasies are determined by women, literature and drugs. This lively tale by the young official about the “reality of life in India”, who is posted to the small provincial town of Madna, is a “funny, ironically twisted story of Agastya Sen's year in the farthest province”, as a reviewer in the British Observer reports.

Chatterjee's second novel, The Last Burden , was published in 1993. This novel traces life in an Indian family at the end of the 20th century.

In late 2000, The Mammaries of the Welfare State , the sequel to English, August , was published. His most recent novel, Weight Loss , a black comedy, was published in 2006.

Anjana Sharma compares Upamayu's vision of humanity with William Butler Yeats' . She writes: "Although eighty years apart and with different cultural and civilizational backgrounds as well as differences in craft and temperament, Yeats and Chatterjee share an identical vision of a decentered and de-natured world". Mukul Dishit argues that for the first time Chatterjee is focusing on a "new class" of westernized metropolitan Indians that has been ignored in local as well as English fiction in India. He explains that Chatterjee's imagination is as rich as the Kafka's ; his sense of tragedy as fine as Camus' and his understanding of the absurd and comic in life is on par with Milan Kundera and Saul Bellow .

Awards

  • Officier des Arts et des Lettres, award from the French government
  • Sahitya Akademi Award , 2000 for "The Mammaries of the Welfare State"

Works

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kartik Chandra Dutt: Who's who of Indian Writers, 1999: AM. Sahitya Akademi, 1999, p. 225 restricted preview in the Google book search
personal data
SURNAME Chatterjee, Upamanyu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian-Bengali writer and administrator
DATE OF BIRTH December 19, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Patna , Bihar