Born in India, UPAMANYU CHATTERJEE attended St. Stephen’s
College in Delhi. He joined the Indian Administrative Service in
1983, later moving to the United Kingdom to serve as the Writer in
Residence at the University of Kent. A writer of short stories and
novels, he was appointed Director of Languages in the Ministry of
Human Resource Development for the Indian government.
AKHIL SHARMA was born in Delhi, India. He grew up in Edison,
New Jersey. His stories have appeared in the Best American Short
Stories anthology, the O. Henry Award Winners anthology, The
Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker. He is a winner of The Voice
Literary Supplement’s Year 2000 "Writers on the Verge" Award.
An “affectionate yet unsparing slacker view of modern IndiaÉlikened
to John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces and J.D. Salinger's
The Catcher in the Rye Unlike many of the other Indian writers we
read these days, Chatterjee has remained in India...He's a writer
worth discovering, and English, August is the place to
start.”–Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
“This is a very funny novel, but a humane one as well.”–Katherine
Powers, The Boston Globe
“Chatterjee offers…a funny, intimate portrait of one person
puzzling over his place in the world…”–Julia Hanna, The Boston
Phoenix
A “witty and lyrical first novel…it is hard to believe that it has
taken this book so long to reach American readers, but once they
finish it, they will agree it was well worth the wait. A
contribution not just to Indian literature but to world literature;
highly recommended.”–Library Journal * Stared Review
“English, August is one of the most important novels in Indian
writing in English, but not for the usual reasons. Indeed, it’s at
war with ‘importance,’ and is one of the few Indian English novels
in the last two decades genuinely, and wonderfully, impelled by
irreverence and aimlessness. It’s this acutely intelligent
conflation of self-discovery with the puncturing of solemnity that
makes this book not only a significant work, but a much-loved one.”
–Amit Chaudhuri
“A slacker seeks career success and sexual fulfillment in
Chatterjee's 1988 first novel, since proclaimed a contemporary
Indian classic…This beautifully written book strikes a nifty
balance among satiric comedy, pointed social commentary and
penetrating characterization. Widely considered India's Catcher in
the Rye, it also echoes both R.K. Narayan's Malgudi novels and J.P.
Donleavy's classic portrayal of rampant, unrepentant maleness, The
Ginger Man…Excellent stuff. Let's have Chatterjee's other novels,
please.” –Kirkus Reviews
“The ‘Indianest’ novel in English that I know of. Utterly
uncompromised, wildly funny, and a revelation of everyday life in
modern India.” — Suketu Mehta
“…Chatterjee, himself an IAS officer, creates a comic, entertaining
portrayal of an administrator's life in the sticks.” –Publishers
Weekly
“…a remarkably mature first novel” –The Times Literary
Supplement
"There's a popular conception that Indian fiction in English hit
the road to big time with Upamanyu Chatterjee's English, August in
1988. The irreverent language, the wry humour and the immediately
identifiable situations struck a chord with a generation of Indians
which was looking for its own voice and found it in Agastya Sen." –
The Sunday Express
“[an] elegant and gently mischievous satire” –The London
Observer
“By the highest serio-comic standards, this novel marks the debut
of an extraordinarily promising talent.” —The Observer
“Beautifully written…English, August is a marvelously intelligent
and entertaining novel, and especially for anyone curious about
modern India.” –Punch
“A jazzy, baggy, hyperbolic, comic and crazy clamour of voices
which…brings a breath of fresh talent to Indian fiction.” –Glasgow
Herald
“…when New York Review Books Classics publishes Upamanyu
Chatterjee’s 1988 debut novel, English, August, for the first time
in the U.S., Americans will finally have the chance to be in on
what readers in England and India have known for years: that the
great outpouring of Indian lit over the past decade and a half owes
as much to this irreverent, acid-witted book as it does to Salman
Rushdie’s magnum opus, Midnight’s Children…A best-seller in India
(and later a hit film), English, August struck a chord with a
generation of young writers wrestling with the messy sprawl of
modern South Asia…English, August is more than a satire. It’s also
a novel with resonating concerns about the meaning of maturity in
the modern era. …American readers should identify with the brainy,
sarcastic and slightly confused protagonist of English, August as
he struggles to find a purpose in a rapidly changing world.”–Time
Out New York
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