Amitav Ghosh Biography
Amitav Ghosh is one of India's best-known writers. His books include The
Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique Land,
Dancing in Cambodia, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace,
Incendiary Circumstances and The Hungry Tide. His most recent
novel, Sea of Poppies, is the first volume of the Ibis Trilogy.
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta in 1956. He studied in Dehra Dun, New Delhi,
Alexandria and Oxford and his first job was at the Indian Express newspaper in
New Delhi. He earned a doctorate at Oxford before he wrote his first novel,
which was published in 1986.
The Circle of Reason won the Prix Medicis Etranger, one of France's top
literary awards, and The Shadow Lines won the Sahitya Akademi Award & the
Ananda Puraskar. The Calcutta Chromosome won the Arthur C. Clarke Award
for 1997 and The Glass Palace won the Grand Prize for Fiction at the
Frankfurt International e-Book Awards in 2001. The Hungry Tide won the
Hutch Crossword Book Prize in 2006. In 2007 Amitav Ghosh was awarded the
Grinzane Cavour Prize in Turin, Italy.
Amitav Ghosh has written for many publications, including the Hindu, The New
Yorker and Granta, and he has served on the juries of several international film
festivals, including Locarno and Venice. He has taught at many universities in
India and the USA, including Delhi University, Columbia, the City University of
New York and Harvard. He no longer teaches and is currently writing the next
volume of the Ibis Trilogy.
He is married to the writer, Deborah Baker, and has two children, Lila and Nayan.
He divides his time between Kolkata, Goa and Brooklyn.
In March 2010, Margaret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh were joint recipients of the 2010 Dan David Prize, awarded annually for achievements in science, technology and culture. Three prizes of US$ 1 million each are annually awarded for achievements having an outstanding scientific, technological, cultural or social impact on our world. Each year fields are chosen within the three Time Dimensions - Past, Present and Future - Atwood and Ghosh won in the "Present" category which recognizes achievements that shape and enrich society today.
Bibliography to date:
Sea of Poppies (2008 UK, 2009 USA)
Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times
(2006)
The Hungry Tide. Novel set on the easternmost coast of India.
(2004 UK, 2005 USA).
The Imam and the Indian. Essays. (2002).
The Glass Palace. Novel encompassing 100 years of Burmese (Myanmar) life
from 1885 to the modern-day (2000).
Dancing in Cambodia and At Large in Burma. Essays (1998).
The Calcutta Chromosome. Novel set in Calcutta in 1898 (1997).
In An Antique Land. Biography (1992).
The Shadow Lines. Novel about a family in Calcutta and Dhaka and their
connection with an English family in London (1988)
The Circle of Reason. Novel (1986)
This biography was last updated on 03/24/2010.
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