Amit Chaudhuri (b. 1969) is an Indian English author. He has written numerous novels, short stories, and critical essays in English, but is probably best known for his book Freedom Song. 1969 (MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday For other uses, see Number 1969. ... Indian English refers to the dialects or varieties of English spoken primarily in India and the Indian subcontinent, and also by Indian diaspora elsewhere in the world. ...
AmitChaudhuri's first book, A Strange and Sublime Address (1991), unfolds in Calcutta, as the child protagonist, Sandeep, leaves behind the tranquility of his parents' flat in Bombay and returns, once more, to spend the vacation in Calcutta.
In a typically outspoken attack on postcolonial writing recently, Chaudhuri despaired that work appearing under this heading 'has become less a critical or imaginative exploration than a political programme, with novelists "writing back" to the Empire that had supposedly formed their recent histories'.
In a recent article, AmitChaudhuri recalled the influence of Nobel Prize winner, V. Naipaul, on his work, and there is something of Naipaul's sadness, solitariness and pessimism here.
AmitChaudhuri in what he calls the 'swamp heat' of Calcutta, but his writing is cool, almost air-conditioned.
Chaudhuri's previous books, recently collected in one volume as A Freedom Song, were similarly lacking in potential for hype: 'Schoolboy from Bombay details his holiday in Calcutta'; 'Indian student at Oxford muses on his casual desire for fellow undergraduates'; 'Calcutta family fails to put on a play'.
Chaudhuri has always written with acuity about children, and he brings to life the tenderness and mutual dependency of Jayojit's relationship with his son through pure physical observation.
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