Makarand R. Paranjape (born 31 August 1960) is an Indian novelist, poet, the Director at

Indian Institute of Advanced Study The Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS) is a research institute located in Shimla, India. It was set up by the Ministry of Education, Government of India in 1964 and started functioning from 20 October 1965. History and establishment The ...

(IIAS),

Shimla Shimla (; ; also known as Simla, the official name until 1972) is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared as the summer capital of British India. After independence, the ...

and, since 1999, a Professor of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

in the Centre for English Studies at the

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is a public major research university located in New Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university is known for leading faculties and r ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...

Early life and education

Makarand R. Paranjape was born in 1960 in Ahmedabad,

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

. He was educated at the

Bishop Cotton Boys' School Bishop Cotton Boys' School is an all-boys school for boarders and day scholars in Bangalore, India, founded in the memory of Bishop George Edward Lynch Cotton, Bishop of Calcutta. The school has been described as "The Eton of the East". Th ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

followed by a B.A. (Hons.) in English at St. Stephen's College,

University of Delhi Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a collegiate university, collegiate Central university (India), central university located in New Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and ...

, in 1980. Thereafter, he joined the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...

from where he received his M.A. in English Literature and, subsequently, a PhD, in 1985, on the topic ''Mysticism in Indian English Poetry''.

Career

Makarand Paranjape had started his career in 1980 as a teaching assistant at the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univers ...

(UIUC) and returned to India in 1986 to join the

University of Hyderabad The University of Hyderabad (IAST: ''Hydarāvād visvavidyālayamu'') is a top ranking public central research university located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Founded in 1974, this mostly residential campus has more than 5,000 students a ...

, first as lecturer and then reader. In 1994, he joined the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at

IIT Delhi The Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi is a public institute of technology located in New Delhi, India. It is one of the 23 IITs created to be Centres of Excellence for training, research and development in science, engineering and technolo ...

as an associate professor, and between 1999–2018, he served as professor of English at

, New Delhi.Makarand Paranjape, short Biography
Université Interdisciplinaire de Paris, (UIP).

IIAS

Paranjape was appointed as Director of IIAS in August 2018. In August 2020, charges of irregularities filed against him by another office-bearer, leading to a spat with the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman at the institution."War Within: It's Right versus Right at Shimla's Esteemed IIAS"
''The Daily Guardian''. Utpal Kumar and Kunal Roy. 8 September 2020. Paranjape offered a rebuttal to his critics through an interview with ''The Wire'' in April 2021. However, it was later reported that he had violated the MoA (memorandum of association) of the institute as its Director and that it was not any clash with other specific individual heads at the institution.

Works and reception

In his coffee-table book of poems published in January 2022 as ''Identity's Last Secret'', Paranjape discussed how he "came out of a difficult relationship." In 2013, Makarand R. Paranjape published a novel called '' Body Offering''. The novel is a tale of a middle-aged man's extra-marital affair with a woman 25 years younger than him. The ''Sunday Guardian'' dubbed the book as one "that walked in the long shadow cast" by Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabakov's 1955 novel '' Lolita''."Paranjape's Novel Is More Erratic than Erotic."
Aditya Mani Jha. ''The Sunday Guardian''. 10 August 2013.

Personal life

In 1987, Paranjape married Sarina, a graduate student at UIUC. In 2006, he married Devaki Singh, daughter of Arun Singh. They divorced in 2014. He is now married to Gayatri Iyer. No date provided to the current marriage in the source.

Honours

* ICCR Chair in Indian Studies, National University of Singapore, August 2010 onwards. * October–December 2014: Inaugural DAAD-Eric Auerbach Visiting Chair in World Literatures at the University of Tübingen, Germany.

Notes

References

External links

The Official Makarand Paranjape Webpage

Makarand Paranjape Webpage at JNU