Amitav Ghosh, a pioneer of English literature in India, was born in
Calcutta (Now Kolkata) in the year 1956. Amitav Ghosh has been raised
and educated at the same time in as different locations as Bangladesh,
Sri Lanka, Iran, Egypt, India and the United Kingdom. He completed his
higher studies in England where he went on to receive his Ph.D. in
social anthropology from Oxford University. After completing his Ph.D.
he decided to pursue his career in writing.
Amitav
Ghosh is acclaimed in the literary world for his works on fiction,
travel writing and journalism. His long list of accomplishment includes
books like The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In an Antique Land
and Dancing in Cambodia. His previous work, The Glass Palace, was an
international bestseller that sold more than a half-million copies in
Britain. Recently published there, The Hungry Tide has been sold for
translation in twelve foreign countries and is also a bestseller abroad.
Among awards, Ghosh has won France's Prix Medici Etranger, India's
prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the
Pushcart Prize.
The fictions of Amitav Ghosh are marked by extreme themes that go side
by side with post-colonialism. Nevertheless it will be nothing short of
insult, for an author of his repute, to say that his works are
formulaic. It is practically impossible to label his works. It can be
added here that his topics are much more unique and personal. The appeal
of Amitav' s work lies in his ability to weave "Indo-nostalgic"
elements into more serious, heavier themes. The Government of India
conferred Amitav Ghosh with Padma Bhushan. He now divides his time
between Harvard University, where he is a visiting professor, and his
homes in India and Brooklyn, New York. He is planning to shift back to
India.
