Vikram Seth

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Vikram Seth

Sahitya Academy, Stegner Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Commonwealth Writers' Prize
Vikram Seth's voice
from the BBC programme Desert Island Discs, 22 January 2012.[1]
Website
www.vikramseth.net

Vikram Seth

Mappings and Beastly Tales are notable contributions to the Indian English language poetry canon.[3]

Early life and education

Seth was born on 20 June 1952 in

Bata Shoes and his mother, Leila Seth, a Barrister by training, became the first female judge of the Delhi High Court and first woman to become Chief Justice of a state High Court in India.[4]

Seth was educated at the all-boys' private boarding school

Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He then pursued a Ph.D. in Economics at Stanford University though never completed it.[8][9][10]

Work and style

Seth has published eight books of poetry and three novels. In 1980, he wrote

Two Lives
, published in 2005, is a memoir of the marriage of his great-uncle and aunt.

In addition to

Beastly Tales from Here and There (1992) consists of 10 stories about animals. He has written a travel book, From Heaven Lake: Travels through Sinkiang and Tibet (1983), an account of a journey through Tibet, China and Nepal. He was also commissioned by the English National Opera to write a libretto based on the Greek legend of Arion
and the Dolphin. The opera was performed for the first time in June 1994.

A sequel to A Suitable Boy, A Suitable Girl, was announced in 2009.

Seth's former literary agent Giles Gordon recalled being interviewed by Seth for the position, "Vikram sat at one end of a long table and he began to grill us. It was absolutely incredible. He wanted to know our literary tastes, our views on poetry, our views on plays, which novelists we liked".[12] Seth later explained to Gordon that he had passed the interview not because of commercial considerations, but because unlike the others he was the only agent who seemed as interested in his poetry as in his other writing. Seth followed what he has described as "the ludicrous advance for that book" (£250,000 for A Suitable Boy)[13] with £500,000 for An Equal Music and £1.4 million for Two Lives.[14] He prepared an acrostic poem[15] for his address at Gordon's 2005 memorial service.[16]

Personal life

Seth is

Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, a law against homosexuality.[17] When Section 377 was reinstated in 2013, Seth continued campaigning against the law.[19][20][21]

Seth divides his time between the United Kingdom, where he bought and renovated the former home of the Anglican poet George Herbert near Salisbury, and India, where he has a family home in Noida, Uttar Pradesh.[22]

Bibliography

Novels

Poetry

Children's fiction

  • Arion and the Dolphin (1994)
  • The Louse and the Mosquito (2020)

Non-fiction

  • From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (1983)
  • Two Lives
    (2005)
  • The Rivered Earth (2011)[25]

Appearances in poetry anthologies

Awards and honours

  • 1983 – Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet
  • 1985 – Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Asia) for The Humble Administrator's Garden
  • 1988 – Sahitya Akademi Award for The Golden Gate
  • 1993 – Shortlisted,
    Irish Times International Fiction Prize
    for A Suitable Boy
  • 1994 – Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book) for A Suitable Boy
  • 1994 – WH Smith Literary Award for A Suitable Boy
  • 1999 –
    Crossword Book Award
    for An Equal Music
  • 2001 –
    Commander of the Order of the British Empire
  • 2001 – EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award) for Best Book/Novel for An Equal Music
  • 2005 – Pravasi Bharatiya Samman
  • 2007 – Padma Shri in Literature & Education[29]
  • 2013 – NDTV's 25 Greatest Global Living Legends In India

See also

References

  1. ^ "Vikram Seth". Desert Island Discs. 22 January 2012. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  2. ^ Hor, Sandip (2010). "Indian Link — The City of Wonders". indianlink.com.au. Archived from the original on 4 April 2013. Retrieved 28 March 2011.
  3. JSTOR 23002110
    .
  4. ISBN 978-0-8264-5707-3
    .
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-81-8475-055-3
    .
  6. ^ "A suitable joy | Books". The Guardian. 26 March 1999. Retrieved 7 April 2020.
  7. ISBN 9780826457073
    . Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  8. ^ "Vikram Seth". ekikrat.in. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  9. ^ "The Golden Gate returns to Stanford May 30". news.stanford.edu. 20 May 2013. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  10. ^ Vikram Seth's Founder's Day Address, The Doon School, Penguin Books of Modern Speeches (2009) p.34 "...edited the Weekly and did other things"
  11. ^ "A Suitable Boy: BBC miniseries".
  12. ^ Gavron, Jeremy (27 March 1999), "A suitable joy", The Guardian, London, retrieved 5 September 2007."
  13. ^ Flood, Alison (3 July 2009). "Vikram Seth writes Suitable Boy sequel". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  14. ^ Bhatia, Shyam (1 September 2003), "Seth to get at least $3 million advance", Rediff.com, retrieved 5 September 2007
  15. ^ "Curtis Brown". Archived from the original on 15 August 2004. Retrieved 26 February 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  16. ^ "Vikram Seth – Vikram Seth Biography – Poem Hunter". poemhunter.com. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  17. ^ a b ""It Took Me Long To Come To Terms With Myself. Those Were Painful Years."". 11 March 2016. Archived from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  18. ^ Seth, Vikram (1999). An Equal Music. Vintage.
  19. ^ Seth, Vikram (20 December 2013). "Vikram Seth on Section 377 and gay rights in India". India Today.
  20. ^ Burke, Jason (20 December 2013). "Vikram Seth: India's gay sex ban is against our tradition of tolerance". The Guardian.
  21. ^ Biswas, Soutik (20 December 2013). "Why Indian author Vikram Seth is angry". BBC News.
  22. ^ Lewis, Leo; Island, Jindo (29 July 2006), "Listening to God's melodies", The Times, London, retrieved 5 September 2007
  23. ^ "Vikram Seth", DoonOnline: Features & Spotlights, archived from the original on 16 May 2006, retrieved 5 September 2007
  24. S2CID 144544406
  25. ^ "Times of India by Shobha John, TNN: 27 Nov 2011, 05.13 am IST : 'I got drunk to write, says Vikram Seth'", The Times of India, India, 27 November 2011
  26. ^ "The Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets". cse.iitk.ac.in. cse.iitk.ac.in. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  27. ^ "Book review: 'Twelve Modern Indian Poets' by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra". indiatoday.in. indiatoday.in. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  28. ^ Mandal, Somdatta (15 June 2009). "Rubana Huq, ed. The Golden Treasury of Writers Workshop Poetry. Review". Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature. 3 (1): 126–129.
  29. ^ "Padma Awards" (PDF). Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. 2015. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 October 2015. Retrieved 21 July 2015.

Sources

  • Chaudhuri, Amit (ed.). "Vikram Seth (born 1952)." The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature. New York: Vintage, 2004:508–537.

External links

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