INDIAN NOVEL WRITERS AND THEIR CONTRIBUTION

Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian essayist and novelist born on 19th June 1947. He
belonged to a well educated family. His father was Anis Ahmed Rushdie, who was a lawyer
from Cambridge University and had his own business. His mother Negin Bhatt was a teacher. He
went to the Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai and Rugby School in England. His
college was the Kings College and for graduate studies he went to Cambridge University like
his father receiving a Masters Degree in History in 1968.
He had aspired to become a writer since he was five. He started off by acting for a brief time
period after which he did some freelance advertising for almost ten years. Rushdies first book
was Grimus which was published in 1975. It was a story about an immortal Native American
Eagle who goes on an expedition to find out lifes true sense. Meanwhile Rushdie was still
working as a freelance Ad writer, taking him nearly five years to finish off his second book
Midnight Children which was released in 1981.
His book The Satanic Verses (1988) turned Rushdies life into a nightmare. The books story
refers to certain Quranic verses that were removed because they were about a time in the
Prophets life that was offensive to the Muslims. This spread an outrage among the Muslim world
and Ayatullah Rahola Khomeini issued a fatwa or death sentence for Rushdie. The largest
bookselling chains removed his book from their shelves and Rushdie went into hiding. There
were book burnings all over the world condemning the book that had insulted the Muslims so
badly. Those who talked taking Rushdies side publicly were murdered and Rushdie also became
the center of many jokes later on. His marriage had also previously been dissolved due to life
threat to his wife. Rushdie however remarried and had a son.
Rushdie made a public apology and embraced Islam but continued to live in isolation for many
years. In 1990 another novel by Rushdie was released called Haroun and the Sea of Stories. His
book The Moors Last Sigh also received criticism from Hindus. The Ground Beneath Her
Feet was published in 1999. It tells a singers story; that gets lost during an earthquake.
His writing style can be called magical realism combined with historical fiction. His stories
center on the Indian Subcontinent and mostly contain themes like migrations to and fro the East
and West and the incidences occurring in between them. His book The Midnights Children got
the Booker Prize. He was appointed Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth in 2007 because of
his immense contribution to English literature. He is the Commandeur in the Ordre des Art et
des Lettres of France. Rushdie is also on the 13th writer in The Times list of The 50 Greatest
British writers since 1945.
The latest novel by Rushdie is called Luka and the Fire of Life was published in 2010. Other
books written by him include Fury (2001), Shalimar and the Clown (2005) and The
Enchantress of Florence (2008).

Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy was born in 1961 in the Northeastern Indian region of Bengal, to a Christian
mother and Hindu father. She spent her childhood in Aymanam in Kerala, which serves as the
setting for her first novel, The God of Small Things (under the name "Ayemenem"). Roy's
mother, Mary Roy, homeschooled her until the age of ten, when she began attending regular
classes. She has been reluctant to discuss her father publicly, having spent very little time with
him during her lifetime; Roy instead focuses on her mother's influence in her life. Mary Roy, a
political activist, won an unprecedented victory for women's rights in Kerala. Through her
persistence, the Supreme Court granted Christian women in Kerala the right to have an
inheritance.
She spent her teenage years at boarding school in Southern India, after which she earned her
degree from the School of Planning and Architecture in Delhi. After graduating, Roy supported
herself by teaching aerobics while honing her writing skills. She eventually wrote several film
scripts, which are recognized for their complex structure and biting social commentary. Roy
wrote and starred in the film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, and she wrote the script
for Electric Moon, directed by her second husband, Pradip Krishen. (Her first husband was
Gerard Da Cunha, whom she met while in college. Their marriage lasted approximately four
years.) Both films garnered a cult following, setting the stage for the fiction-writing side of Roy's
career. Penguin published the script for In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones as a book in 2004.
Even when she was a low-profile writer, Roy began to assert her political opinions loudly. She
rallied media support for Phoolan Devi, a politician and former criminal of Robin-Hood fame,
whom she felt was being misrepresented by the film Bandit Queen (directed by Shekhar Kapur).
After the controversy surrounding Bandit Queen subsided, Roy took time to write her first and
only novel to date, The God of Small Things. She received an extraordinary advance of half a
million pounds on the book, making its release high-profile well ahead of time. After the novel's
publication in 1997, the book won the prestigious Booker Prize, making Roy its first Indian
woman and non-expatriate Indian recipient.
In addition to her novelistic skills, Roy is widely known for political activism (perhaps along the
lines of a Noam Chomsky). She has published many works of nonfiction including several
essays as well as The End of Imagination (1998), The Greater Common Good (1999), The Cost
of Living (1999),Power Politics (2002), War Talk (2003), The Checkbook and the Cruise
Missile (2004, with David Barsamian), and An Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2004). She
also took part in the June 2005 World Tribunal on Iraq. In January 2006 she was awarded the
Sahitya Akademi award for her collection of essays, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, but she
declined to accept it.
Roy has faced accusations of being anti-American and was convicted of contempt of court by the
New Delhi Supreme Court for her political activism. She remains relentless. For instance, she
was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004 for her efforts toward social justice and peaceful
conflict resolution. Roy continues to write, engage in advocacy, and live with her husband in
New Delhi.
Chetan Bhagat
Chetan Baghat, a rising star in the contemporary modern Indian literature, is a multitalented
personality. He is a novelist, columnist, public speaker and a screenplay writer. His notable

works include Five Point Someone, The 3 Mistakes of My Life and 2 States.Most of his literary
works address the issues related to Indian youth and their aspirations which earned Baghat status
of the youth icon.
On April 22, 1974, in Dehli, India, Baghat was born to a traditional Punjabi bourgeois family.
His father served as lieutenant colonel in the Indian army while his mother worked in
agricultural department of government. He received most of his education in his hometown. In
1978, he was enrolled in Army Public School and later attended the Indian Institute of
Technology, Delhi majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Subsequently, he studied at Indian
Institute of Management Ahmedabad and married a fellow student, Anusha Suryanarayanan, in
1998. Upon graduation, he moved to Hong Kong with his family, where he worked for eleven
years with Goldman Sachs as an investment banker. On his return to India, he shifted to Mumbai
from New Delhi. With the shift he also switched his career choice and embarked on his passion
for writing.
While working as a banker he had already began to write manuscripts for his first two novels.
His debut novel, Five Point Someone What not to do at IIT!,was published in 2004. The story
is centered on three mechanical engineering students with five point GP at IIT, where the author
himself had once studied. It deals with the unfair grading system adopted by the higher education
system which places students into higher and lower echelon based on their rote-learning skills.
The story is narrated from the first person perspective of one of the friends in a light-hearted
tone. Essentially, the book targets the ineffective and uninspiring teaching methods and
evaluation system employed by the internationally recognized institutions. The author points out
that such institutions merely produce a stock of engineers based on their ability to memorize
everything that has been taught rather than encouraging students to tap into their creativity.
Five Point Someone instantly became both literary and commercial success. Baghat reached at
the zenith of his popularity with his debut that was later turned into a critically acclaimed film
titled, 3 Idiots (2009). It was followed by his second equally successful novel, One Night At A
Call Center. In fact, it was adapted for big-screen as Hello and Baghat himself wrote the
screenplay. However, the adaptation failed to capture audiences attention and called a flop. In
2008, he penned The 3 Mistakes of My Life, which is based on the all-time favorite Indian sports,
cricket. The novel garnered positive reviews and the film adaptation released in 2013, Kai Po
Che!, became a hit.
Baghats fourth novel, 2 States: The Story of My Marriage, is a autobiographical novel that
focuses on the prevailing issue of interstate marriage in India. It is based on Baghats and his
wifes own experience, who like the protagonist of the novel relentlessly tried to convince their
respective families of different casts to approve of their marriage. The book highlights the
conservative mindset shared by several sects in Indian states which prohibit marriage outside
their cast. The book and its film adaptation was a major success. Baghat wrote two more
books; Revolution 2020 (2011), andWhat Young India Wants (2012). Additionally, he
received Society Young Achiever award, Publishers Recognition award and Filmfare Award
for Best Screenplay.

Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth is among the most celebrated Indian novelists and poets. He was born on 20th of
June 1952 in Kolkata to Leila, a court judge, and Prem Seth, a shoe company executive. He has
his roots in Punjab. He traveled a lot with his family as a child from Batanagar to Danpur to
London.
He received his early education from St. Xaviers High School in India. Seth went back to
England and during his A-levels he developed interest in Chinese language and poetry. He
received degrees in Economics, Philosophy and Politics from Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Seth moved to California in pursuit of Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University but couldnt
complete the course. His interest in economic field had dried out and gradually developed in
writing. Afterwards, he studied creative writing at Stanford University and classical Chinese
poetry at Nanjing University.
Seth has experimented with a number of genres in writing. He initiated his writing career with
poetry. He published the first volume of his poetry work in 1980, named Mappings. The volume
was ridiculed when he sent a copy to a famous English poet, Philip Larkin. However, he
persuaded Seth to brave the difficulties of writing and write on. In 1985, the second volume The
Humble Administrators Garden was published. With this volume Seth proved his poetic
prowess as he garnered Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Seth also penned a few travel books. From
Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibetwas published in 1983 which explores the
travel through Nepal, Tibet and China. The book also happens to win Thomas Cook Travel Book
Award.
After poetry and travel writing, he made his literary debut in 1986 with the novel, The Golden
Gate. The novel is structured around 690 rhyming iambic tetrameter sonnets. It is a satire on
romance which illustrates the lives of yuppies who are in quest of love for commercial reasons.
Seth received the 1988 Sahitya Akademi Award from Indias National Academy of Letters.
However, it was Seths second novel that brought him in the limelight. A Suitable Boy (1993) is
a 1349 pages long colossus, unparalleled to any book published recently in English language.
The novel explores the national and political issues in post-independence period. The book is not
based on a single story. Seth demonstrates the concerns of the society in the partitioned India
which range from Hindu-Muslim conflicts, academic affairs, intra-family relations and land
reforms.
An Equal Music was published in 1999 that is considered to be one of Seths masterpieces. The
book is the testimonial of his musical inclination in which he illustrates a heart-wrenching story
of a violinist agonized by his separation from a former lover. The emotional intensity and music
knowledge demonstrated in the book places Seths creative powers at the zenith. In fact, the
book had Seth earned Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award.
Seths versatility can be deduced by his contribution to libretto as he was commissioned by
English National Opera to write one based on the Greek legend of Arion and the Dolphin.
Moreover, Seth is a polyglot, who is well-versed in quite a few languages, including Mandarin,

Welsh, Urdu, English and French. Being a music buff, he takes great pleasure in singing German
lieder and playing cello and flute.
Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh is a well-known name in the contemporary literature. The Indian-born writer
produced a wide range of novels in the genre of historical fiction. His fictional work centers on
the Southeast Asian population dealing with the identity crisis at different levels.
Born in Kolkata on 11th of July 1956, Amitav Ghosh belongs to a Bengali Hindu household. His
father, Lieutenant Colonel Shailendra Chandra Ghosh, was a diplomat who travelled a lot during
Ghoshs childhood. Consequently he had the opportunity to grow up and see the different
cultures of Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Iran besides India. Ghosh received his higher education
from University of Delhi obtaining a Bachelors of Arts and a Masters degree. During his studies
he also engrossed himself in reporting and editorial work for a newspaper. Afterwards he left for
England where he got admission in the University of Oxford and had himself enrolled in social
anthropology course for Ph.D. degree.
Before embarking on a journey as a writer, Ghosh started off his professional career with
teaching. There are a number of universities he taught at including Columbia University in NYU,
Queens College of the City University, American University in Cairo, Harvard University and
many more. Ghosh made his writing debut with The Circle of Reason (1986). The novels
focuses on a central character being accused of terrorism and his journey to Africa. It is
considered a postcolonial and postmodern literature for its treatment of the colonial factors and
the intertextual nature the novel, respectively. Another widely recognized work of Ghosh
includes The Shadow Lines (1988) that also deals with the aftermath of departure of British
colonial powers from India.
Later in 2000, Ghosh produced another historical novel, The Glass Palace. This is a complex
work of fiction set in different regions and time periods. In depth the novel addresses the
prevailing issues like economic changes, constitution of a nation and the impact of modernity on
the society. Sea of Poppies (2008) is one of the first volumes in Ibis trilogy. The story is set in
the pre-Opium-War period in 1830s. It summarizes the colonial period in the Southeast Asia.
The second volume in the trilogy is recently published by the title, River of Smoke (2011).
Besides writing historical fiction Ghosh subsequently delved into science fiction genre. His first
sci-fi novel The Calcutta Chromosome was published in 1995. Sir Ronald Ross is considered to
be the inspiration for the book. This medical thriller, set in future, revolves around random
people who are brought together by a common thread of events. In an Antique Land (1992) is a
Ghoshs experimental work encompassing variety of genres like autobiographical writing,
fictional and non-fictional writing, blending into each other. Incendiary Circumstances, Dancing
in Cambodia and The Imam and the Indian are marked as his contributions to non-fictional
genre.

Amitav Ghoshs work is recognized internationally for which he achieved several honorary
awards. In 1990, he received Frances chief literary award, Frances Prix Mdicis, for The Circle
of Reason. Arthur C. Clarke Award was presented to him for The Calcutta Chromosome.
Another prestigious milestone in his career arrived when Sea of Poppies won Dan David Prize
and was also shortlisted for Man Booker Prize. The Glass Palace was considered for
Commonwealth Writers Prize but he pull out amid the consideration process. Amitav Ghosh is
an established Indian author and there are more twenty languages in which his works have been
translated so far.