Amitav Ghosh

Born in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, in India on July 11th 1956, Amitav Ghosh is a well-known writer who is famous for penning down English fiction and non-fiction. Although he was born in Kolkata, he was raised in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Ghosh did his schooling from The Doon School located in Dehradun where he was also the editor of The Doon School Weekly.

Prominent writers and Ghosh’s fellows, Ram Guha and Vikram Seth Vikram Seth, an Indian poet and novelist , was bor >> Read More... also studied at The Doon School. Amitav is an alumnus of the St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi and did his post-graduation in Social Anthropology from the Delhi School of Economics. Amitav received a DPhil scholarship from St Edmund Hall in Oxford, situated in England and he was supervised by Peter Lienhardt. Ghosh’s father, Shailendra Chandra Ghosh was an officer in the Indian army.

Ghosh used to work at the Indian Express newspaper before becoming a prominent writer. After completing his DPhil, he returned to India and started writing his first book titled, The Circle Click to look into! >> Read More... of Reason which got published in the year 1986. The book is quite technical and full of twists as described by the readers and gives an insight into the early Bengali literature. This book was awarded the most prestigious French award, Prix Médicis étranger.

Ghosh’s next book was The Shadow Lines, which came out in the year 1988. The Shadow Lines is the best example of partition literature and focused on the communal riots that broke out in Dhaka. Ghosh went ahead to write novels like The Calcutta Chromosome, Sea of Poppies, Hungry Tide and The Glass Palace. Sea of Poppies was the first book as the part of Ibis trilogy and was followed by the books, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire.

Ghosh is not only famous because of his fiction work but also for his non-fiction work. His notable works under the category of non-fiction are Countdown, In An Antique Land, The Imam and the Indian, and Dancing in Cambodia and At Large in Burma. Ghosh has also issued a collection of critical essays, and his writings and articles feature in prestigious literary magazines and newspapers. Ghosh has won several accolades in his career including Sahitya Akademi Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Dan David Prize, and much more.

Ghosh also received the honor of Padma Shri from the Indian Government. Amitav Ghosh is a happily married man with two children and resides in Brooklyn in New York Click to look into! >> Read More... . He married the famous writer, Deborah Baker, and his kids are Nayan and Lila.