Suketu Mehta is the New York-based author of ''Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found'', which won the Kiriyama Prize and the Hutch Crossword Award, and was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, the Lettre Ulysses Prize, the BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize, and the Guardian First Book Award. His autobiographical account of his experiences in Mumbai, ''

Maximum City ''Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found'' is a narrative nonfiction book by Suketu Mehta, published in 2004, about the Indian city of Mumbai (also known as Bombay). It was published in hardcover by Random House's Alfred A. Knopf imprint. When rele ...

,'' was published in 2004. The book, based on two and a half years research, explores the underbelly of the city. He has won a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship for his fiction. Mehta’s work has been published in ''The New Yorker'', ''The New York Times Magazine'', ''National Geographic, Granta'', ''Harper’s'', ''Time'', ''Newsweek'', ''

The New York Review of Books ''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...

'' and

Scroll.in ''Scroll.in'', simply referred to as ''Scroll'', is an Indian digital news publication owned by the Scroll Media Incorporation. It publishes content in both Hindi and English languages. Founded in 2014, the website and its journalists have won ...

, and has been featured on NPR’s ''Fresh Air,'' and NPR's ''All Things Considered''. Mehta has also written original screenplays for films, including ''New York, I Love You'' (2008) and ''

Mission Kashmir ''Mission Kashmir'' is a 2000 Indian Hindi-language action thriller film directed and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The film stars Sanjay Dutt, Hrithik Roshan, Jackie Shroff, Preity Zinta, and Sonali Kulkarni. It deals with terrorism and the tr ...

'' with novelist Vikram Chandra. His latest book '' This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto,'' was published in June 2019 under a 2007 Guggenheim fellowship.

Personal life

Mehta was born in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, to

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...

parents and raised in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

, where he lived until his family moved to the New York area in 1977. He is a graduate of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Mehta is a cancer survivor. Mehta is an Associate Professor of Journalism at

and lives in Manhattan.

Awards

*He won a Whiting Award in 1997. *He won the

O. Henry Prize The O. Henry Award is an annual American award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American short-story writer O. Henry. The ''PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories'' is an annual collection of the year's twenty bes ...

for his short story ''Gare du Nord'' published in

Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...

in 1997. *He won a Fellowship of the New York Foundation for the Arts. *He won a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship. *2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for the book ''Maximum City''. *''Maximum City'' was also chosen as one of the books of the year 2004 by ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

''. *''Maximum City'' won the 2005

Kiriyama Prize The Kiriyama Prize was an international literary award awarded to books about the Pacific Rim and South Asia. Its goal was to encourage greater understanding among the peoples and nations of the region. Established in 1996, the prize was last awa ...

Works

* * *''This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant's Manifesto''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2019.

Filmography

As Writer

References

External links

Suketu Mehta
official web site.
Profile at The Whiting Foundation
with the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''
Interview
in '' The Believer'' magazine by

Karan Mahajan Karan Mahajan (born April 24, 1984) is an Indian-American novelist, essayist, and critic. His second novel, ''The Association of Small Bombs,'' was a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction. He has contributed writing to '' The Bel ...

Interview
with Venkatesan Vembu, ''

Daily News & Analysis ''Zee Media Corporation Limited'' (abbreviated as ZMCL; formerly Zee News Limited) is the news broadcasting company of the Essel Group which is controlled by Subhash Chandra. The company is engaged mainly in the business of broadcasting of news ...

''
Lettre Ulysses Award Biography
(broken link as of 27 Oct 2012)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehta, Suketu 1963 births Living people Indian emigrants to the United States Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni New York University alumni New York University faculty Writers from Kolkata American autobiographers American male journalists American writers of Indian descent American short story writers American male short story writers English-language writers from India Gujarati people American people of Gujarati descent