“The Indian Novel As an Agent of History” | Lecture by Chandrahas Choudhury

Thursday, September 25, 2014 4:30 PM
Luce Hall (LUCE), Room 203
34 Hillhouse Avenue
Location is wheelchair accessible

At the South Asian Studies Council Colloquium Series event on September 25, Chandrahas Choudhury, a New Delhi based author of the acclaimed novel Arzee the Dwarf (HarperCollins, India; New York Review Books, USA; Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Germany), will deliver a lecture entitled “The Indian novel as an agent of history.” In the lecture Choudhury will focus on narratorial meditations and characters in the work of four great Indian novelists to show how their visionary sensibilities – as well as a certain leaning in the very form of the novel – led them to generate new views of Indian history for a new time in history.

Choudhury’s Arzee the Dwarf was shortlisted for the prestigious international prize, the Commonwealth First Book Award in 2010. It was named one of “60 Essential Works of Modern Indian literature in English” by World Literature Today. In addition to being a novelist, Choudhary is also a literary critic. He is the editor of the anthology of Indian fiction India: A Traveler’s Literary Companion (Whereabouts Press, California). His book reviews have appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post. He writes a widely syndicated weekly column on Indian politics and society for the Bloomberg View.

(Chandrahas Choudhury will also give a Master’s Tea talk at Pierson College on September 24 4:00pm)