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 Weight loss, in the context of medicine, health, or physical fitness, refers to a reduction of the total body mass, by a mean loss of fluid, body fat ( adipose tissue), or lean mass (namely bone mineral deposits, muscle, tendon, and other co ...

''. In 2008, he was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contribution to literature.

Biography

Chatterjee was born in 1959 in Patna, Bihar. He attended Delhi University, graduated from St. Stephens College, and became a 1983 batch

Indian Administrative Service The Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is the administrative arm of the All India Services of Government of India. Considered the premier civil service of India, the IAS is one of the three arms of the All India Services along with the Indian ...

officer An officer is a person who has a position of authority in a hierarchical organization. The term derives from Old French ''oficier'' "officer, official" (early 14c., Modern French ''officier''), from Medieval Latin ''officiarius'' "an officer," f ...

. 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.

Major works

Chatterjee has written and published short stories since the 1980s, including stories republished in the 2019 collection ''The Assassination of Indira Gandhi''. His 1988 novel, '' English, August : An Indian story'' was adapted into the film

English, August ''English, August: An Indian Story'' is a novel by Indian author Upamanyu Chatterjee written in English, first published in 1988. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1994. The novel portrays the struggle of a civil servant who is po ...

. His novel '' The Last Burden'' was published in 1993. A sequel to ''English, August'', '' The Mammaries of the Welfare State'' was published in 2000. His fourth novel, ''

'', a dark comedy, was published in 2006. His fifth novel ''Way To Go'', a sequel to ''The Last Burden'', was published in 2010 and longlisted for the

Man Asian Literary Prize The Man Asian Literary Prize was an annual literary award between 2007 and 2012, given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year. It is awarded to writer ...

. In 2014, he published ''Fairy Tales at Fifty''. Indrapramit Das writes in a review for ''

The Hindu Business Line ''Business Line'' or ''The Hindu Business Line'' is an Indian business newspaper published by Kasturi & Sons, the publishers of the newspaper ''The Hindu'' located in Chennai, India. The newspaper covers priority industry verticals, such as Agri ...

'', "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." In 2018, his novella ''The Revenge of the Non-vegetarian'' was published. Pratik Kanjilal writes in a review for ''

The Indian Express ''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split be ...

'', "In a way, it is a back story to his first novel". Uddalak Mukherjee writes in a review for ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'', "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." In ''

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...

'', 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." 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.

Awards

In 2009, he was awarded Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in recognition of his "exemplary contribution to contemporary literature" In 2004, he was awarded the

Sahitya Akademi Award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

for ''The Mammaries of the Welfare State''. The novel ''Way To Go'' was shortlisted for

The Hindu Best Fiction Award ''The Hindu'' Literary Prize or ''The Hindu'' Best Fiction Award, established in 2010, is an Indian literary award sponsored by ''The Hindu Literary Review'' which is part of the newspaper ''The Hindu''. It recognizes Indian works in English an ...

in 2010.

Bibliography

References

External links