Podcast appearances and mentions of Amit Chaudhuri

The text of Kuvempu's epic Kannada novel, Malegalalli Madumagalu (1967), and the recent translation, Bride in the Hills by Vanamala Viswanatha (Penguin Random House, 2024), will be discussed by an eminent panel of scholars, writers and the translator. Set in 1893 in the Malnad region of the Western Ghats with its majestic Sahyadri ranges, dense forests, and river Tunga, Kuvempu's Malegalalli Madumagalu (Bride in the Hills) describes the saga of not one young woman but many, of varied hues, who aspire for love and fulfilment in marriage, in a self-serving, male feudal order. An organic network of interrelated stories, the well-known Kannada writer Devanoora Mahadeva locates the novel in the epic tradition of the Mahabharata and Tolstoy's War and Peace. This woman-centric text weaves together the touching plight of young couples in love, such as Gutti and Timmi, from a Dalit community living on the ghats; Aita and Pinchalu, migrant labourers from below the ghats, and Mukundayya and Chinnamma from the land-owning Shudra caste. Fired from within by their love – the most powerful agent of change – these young people seek a life of freedom and dignity, leading to the transformation of the larger community. Their heartening stories are juxtaposed against the travails of hapless Nagakka and scheming Venkatanna, sickly Deyi and brute Chinkra, and gullible Kaveri and lecherous Devayya. All of them are, in different ways, up against the repressive regimes of the decadent landlords, who manipulate traditional feudal practices as well as the modern apparatus of a colonial state.  True to its claim as an epic novel, Kuvempu's text with its multiple narrative strands vividly enacts its mission statement in the epigraph: “Here, no one is important; no one is unimportant; nothing is insignificant!” Every sentient and insentient thing – the degenerate Chinkra, orphan Dharmu, Huliya the dog, Biri the cat, the evergreen forest, the Hulikal Peak – has a place and a purpose in this narrative. Imbued with an ecological consciousness, the novel offers a veritable biodiversity register of the Malnad region. Kuvempu presents a ‘view from below', a subaltern perspective which also takes in the world of the wealthy and powerful. Winner of the first Sahitya Akademi award in 1955 and the Jnanpith in 1967, Kuvempu (Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa 1904-1994) inaugurated the non-brahmin era in modern Kannada writing. Kuvempu's versatile oeuvre includes a vast body of poetry, plays, novels, children's writing, essays and an autobiography. While his poetic epic ‘Shri Ramayana Darshanam' is a radical rewriting of the Valmiki epic drawing from the Jaina tradition, the two novels, The Kanur House (made into a film by Girish Karnad) and Bride in the Hills, are modern novels set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Inspired by Tolstoy's expansive canvas and Tagore's unique Indian ethos, this first significant Shudra writer and an iconic figure in Kannada culture, has sculpted an entirely regional epic novel in Bride in the Hills. Image Credits Book Cover: MS Murthy and Jay Gosney Header: A Malnad Landscape, Photo courtesy Girish Kasaravalli Photo of Amit Chaudhuri by Richard Lofthouse/University of Oxford In collaboration with Rashtrakavi Kuvempu Pratishthana, Kuppali (Devangi, Thirthahalli, Shivamogga) In this episode of BIC Talks, Vanamala Viswanathan, Rajendra Chenni, Amit Chaudhuri and Arvind Narrain will be in conversation. This is an excerpt from a conversation that took place in the BIC premises in November 2024. Subscribe to the BIC Talks Podcast on your favorite podcast app! BIC Talks is available everywhere, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Castbox, Overcast, Audible, and Amazon Music.

Agyeya was a writer, a rebel, a soldier, a lover-- and a man who shaped modern Hindi literature. Akshaya Mukul joins Amit Varma in episode 324 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about the life of this remarkable man -- as well as the art of biography and the state of the nation. (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out: 1. Akshaya Mukul on Amazon and Twitter. 2. Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives of Agyeya -- Akshaya Mukul. 3. Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India -- Akshaya Mukul. 4. The Gita Press and Hindu Nationalism — Episode 139 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Akshaya Mukul). 5. Agyeya on Wikipedia, Amazon, Kavitakosh and Hindwi. 6. Shekhar: Ek Jeevani (Hindi) (English) -- Agyeya. 7. Dunning-Kruger Effect. 8. Poker at Lake Wobegon — Amit Varma. 9. Listen, The Internet Has SPACE -- Amit Varma. 10. Siddharth Chowdhury on Amazon. 11. The Power Broker — Robert Caro. 12. The Death and Life of Great American Cities — Jane Jacobs. 13. Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing -- Robert Caro. 14. Robert Caro on Amazon. 15. John Richardson's books on Pablo Picasso. 16. Sontag: Her Life and Work -- Benjamin Moser. 17. Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector -- Benjamin Moser. 18. Stephen Kotkin's volumes on Joseph Stalin. 19. Hilary Spurling's volumes on Henri Matisse. 20. India After Gandhi -- Ramachandra Guha. 21. Gandhi Before India -- Ramachandra Guha. 22. Here And Hereafter: Nirmal Verma's Life in Literature -- Nirmal Verma. 23. Ian Kershaw's books on Adolf Hitler. 24. Listen, The Internet Has SPACE — Amit Varma. 25. Why Are My Episodes so Long? -- Amit Varma. 26. The Life and Times of Jerry Pinto — Episode 314 of The Seen and the Unseen. 27. To the Book -- WS Merwin. 28. Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, Raghuvir Sahay, Nagarjun, Maithili Sharan Gupt and Jainendra Kumar. 29. Frida: The Biography of Frida Kahlo -- Hayden Herrera. 30. Maya C Popa, Ilya Kaminsky, Mary Oliver, Nâzım Hikmet, Nizar Qabbani and Forugh Farrokhzad. 31. Francis Newton Souza, VS Gaitonde and Krishen Khanna. 32. A Life in Indian Politics — Episode 149 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jayaprakash Narayan). 33. The Shah Bano case. 34. Hindi Modernism: Rethinking Agyeya and His Times -- Edited by Vasudha Dalmia. 35. Raw Umber : A Memoir -- Sara Rai. 36. Sara Rai Inhales Literature — Episode 255 of The Seen and the Unseen. 37. The email conversation between Pankaj Mishra and Amit Chaudhuri. 38. Rahul Sankrityayan on Wikipedia and Amazon. 39. Jahnavi and the Cyclotron -- Episode 319 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Jahnavi Phalkey). 40. Everybody Lies — Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. 41. Frank Sinatra Has a Cold -- Gay Talese. 42. Also a Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me -- Ada Calhoun. 43. Sunita -- Jainendra Kumar. 44. Song of Myself, 51 -- Walt Whitman. 45. Tar Saptak. 46. Suraj Ka Saatwaan Ghoda -- Dharamvir Bharti. 47. Patrick French on Amazon and Wikipedia. 48. Leon Edel and James Atlas. 49. The Art of Biography No 1 -- Leon Edel interviewed by Jeanne McCulloch for Paris Review.50. Delmore Schwartz: The Life of an American Poet -- James Atlas. 51. The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer's Tale -- James Atlas. 52. The Most of Nora Ephron -- Nora Ephron. 53. What Makes Women Happy -- Fay Weldon. 54. Keeda Jadi Ki Khoj Mein -- Anil Yadav. 55. Bhuvanesh Komkali, Mukul Shivputra, Amir Khan and Alladiya Khan. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! Episode art: ‘The Writing on the Wall' by Simahina.

Chair: Felicity Plunkett In her 1970 book Sexual Politics, Kate Millett described Lady Chatterley's Lover as a “quasi-religious tract" worshipping at the altar of the penis. Critical responses have since become more nuanced. Novelist Alison MacLeod and cultural critics Amit Chaudhuri, Geoff Dyer and Lara Feigel discuss a writer whose subject – sex and bodies – suddenly seems profoundly modern. Event details: Tue 07 Mar, 5:00pm on the East Stage

Chair: Jonathan Green Amit Chaudhuri is an acclaimed essayist, musician, poet and the author of eight novels. His latest, Sojourn, is the story of an Indian academic who arrives in Berlin in 2005 and finds himself absorbed by the city. With this absorption comes the dissolution of identity and memory, as he experiences a profound identification with this otherwise foreign place. Chaudhuri talks about the relationship between history, identity and memory. Event details: Wed 08 Mar, 9:30am on the West Stage

She's been a novelist, a playwright, a critic, an essayist, a memoirist, a journalist, a writer for cinema and a historian of theatre -- in both English and Marathi. Shanta Gokhale joins Amit Varma in episode 311 of The Seen and the Unseen to talk about her remarkable life and times. (For full linked show notes, go to SeenUnseen.in.) Also check out: 1. Shanta Gokhale on Amazon, Wikipedia and her own website. 2. One Foot on the Ground -- Shanta Gokhale. 3. Living With Father: A Memoir -- Shanta Gokhale. 4. आमची आई : इंदिरा गोपाळ गोखले -- Shanta Gokhale. 5. The Engaged Observer: The Selected Writings of Shanta Gokhale -- Edited by Jerry Pinto. 6. Rita Velinkar (Marathi) (English) -- Shanta Gokhale. 7. Tya Varshi/Crowfall (Marathi) (English) -- Shanta Gokhale. 8. Playwright at the Centre: Marathi Drama from 1843 to the Present -- Shanta Gokhale. 9. Shivaji Park: Dadar 28: History, Places, People -- Shanta Gokhale. 10. Satyadev Dubey: A Fifty-Year Journey Through Theatre -- Edited by Shanta Gokhale. 11. The Scenes We Made: An Oral History of Experimental Theatre in Mumbai -- Edited by Shanta Gokhale. 12. Avinash: The Indestructible -- Shanta Gokhale. 13. Smritichitre: The Memoirs of a Spirited Wife -- Lakshmibai Tilak (translated by Shanta Gokhale). 14. The Loneliness of the Indian Man — Episode 303 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nikhil Taneja). 15. The Adda at the End of the Universe -- Episode 309 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vikram Sathaye and Roshan Abbas). 16. Caste, Capitalism and Chandra Bhan Prasad — Episode 296 of The Seen and the Unseen. 17. The Never Never Nest -- Cedric Mount. 18. The Life and Times of Mrinal Pande — Episode 263 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Mrinal Pande). 19. The Female Eunuch -- Germaine Greer. 20. The Second Sex -- Simone de Beauvoir. 21. A Godless Congregation — Amit Varma. 22. Agarkar's Donkeys: A Meditation on God — Amit Varma. 23. The Life and Times of Urvashi Butalia — Episode 287 of The Seen and the Unseen. 24. The Kavita Krishnan Files — Episode 228 of The Seen and the Unseen. 25. Films, Feminism, Paromita — Episode 155 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Paromita Vohra). 26. The Will to Change — bell hooks. 27. The Loneliness of the Indian Man — Episode 303 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Nikhil Taneja). 28. The Three Languages of Politics — Arnold Kling. 29. Memories and Things — Episode 195 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aanchal Malhotra). 30. History of European Morals — WEH Lecky. 31. The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress — Peter Singer. 32. The Nurture Assumption — Judith Rich Harris. 33. Phineas Gage. 34. Don't think too much of yourself. You're an accident — Amit Varma's column on Chris Cornell's death. 35. The Rooted Cosmopolitanism of Sugata Srinivasaraju — Episode 277 of The Seen and the Unseen. 36. Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram, Arun Kolatkar and Dilip Chitre. 37. GN Devy on Amazon and Wikipedia. 38. Navyug Vachanmala and Arun Vachan -- PK Atre's series for elementary school and middle school respectively. 39. The State of Our Farmers — Episode 86 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Gunvant Patil). 40. Varun Grover Is in the House — Episode 292 of The Seen and the Unseen. 41. Hussain Haidry, Hindustani Musalmaan — Episode 275 of The Seen and the Unseen. 42. Storytel. 43. Pu La Deshpande, Raag Darbari and Kashi Ka Assi on Storytel. 44. The Refreshing Audacity of Vinay Singhal — Episode 291 of The Seen and the Unseen. 45. Stage.in. 46. A Doll's House -- Henrik Ibsen. 47. Looking for Ibsen in Maharashtra -- Shanta Gokhale. 48. The Vintage Book Of Indian Writing 1947 - 1997 -- Edited by Salman Rushdie and Elizabeth West. 49. The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature -- Edited by Amit Chaudhuri. 50. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the creator ecosystem with Roshan Abbas, Varun Duggirala, Neelesh Misra, Snehal Pradhan, Chuck Gopal, Nishant Jain, Deepak Shenoy and Abhijit Bhaduri. 51. 1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly. 52. 1000 True Fans? Try 100 — Li Jin. 53. Namdeo Dhasal on Amazon and Wikipedia. 54. Alice Munro on Amazon and Wikipedia. 55. Squid Game on Netflix. 56. Yada Kadachit (Part 1) (Part 2) -- Written and directed by Santosh Pawar. 57. Sakharam Binder (Marathi) (English) -- Vijay Tendulkar. 58. A Cricket Tragic Celebrates the Game -- Episode 201 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Ramachandra Guha). 59. सप्तरंगी कोरिया एक अनुभव -- Sudha Hujurbajar-Tumbe. 60. Suyash Rai Embraces India's Complexity -- Episode 307 of The Seen and the Unseen. 61. Alice in Wonderland -- Lewis Carroll. 62. Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth, JB Priestley, George Bernard Shaw and William Shakespeare on Amazon. 63. The Lost Daughter -- Elena Ferrante. 64. The Lost Daughter -- The film by Maggie Gyllenhaal. 65. The Shadow Lines -- Amitav Ghosh. 66. Enid Blyton on Amazon. 67. This Life At Play: Memoirs -- Girish Karnad. 68. Sunil Shanbag and Shanta Gokhale in conversation with Girish Karnad. 69. Aranyer Din Ratri -- Satyajit Ray. 70. Messy: How to Be Creative and Resilient in a Tidy-Minded World -- Tim Harford. 71. A Room of One's Own -- Virginia Woolf. 72. A Passage to India -- EM Forster. 73. Kumar Shahani on Wikipedia and IMDb. 74. Middlemarch -- George Eliot. 75. Anna Karenina -- Leo Tolstoy. 76, Far From the Madding Crowd -- Thomas Hardy. 77. Vanity Fair -- William Makepeace Thackeray. 78. Ulysses -- James Joyce. 79. Picnic at Hanging Rock -- Peter Weir. 80. Why Read the Classics? -- Italo Calvino. 81. The Memoirs of Dr Haimabati Sen — Haimabati Sen (translated by Tapan Raychoudhuri). 82. Hercule Poirot on Amazon, Wikipedia and Britannica. 83. The Golden Age of Murder — Martin Edwards. 84. PG Wodehouse on Amazon, Wikipedia and Britannica. 85. A Meditation on Form — Amit Varma. 86. The Creative Process: A Symposium -- Edited by Brewster Ghiselin. 87. Nissim Ezekiel and Satyadev Dubey. 88. Avadhya -- CT Khanolkar. 89. Masaan — Directed by Neeraj Ghaywan and written by Varun Grover. 90. Tanjore Painting and Prabhakar Barwe. 91. Profit = Philanthropy — Amit Varma. 92. Where Have All The Leaders Gone? — Amit Varma. 93. What Have We Done With Our Independence? — Episode 186 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pratap Bhanu Mehta). 94. The Gentle Wisdom of Pratap Bhanu Mehta — Episode 300 of The Seen and the Unseen. 95. Memoirs -- Habib Tanvir. 96. Sulabha Deshpande on Wikipedia and IMDb. 97. Sunil Shanbag on Wikipedia, IMDb and Instagram. 98. Atul Pethe on Book My Show and Facebook. 99. Shanta Gokhale's cameo in Ardh Satya (at 1:36:10). 100. My Friend Sancho -- Amit Varma. 101. Bend it Like Beckham -- Gurinder Chadha. 102. We Should Celebrate Rising Divorce Rates (2008) — Amit Varma. 103. Indira Sant on Amazon and Wikipedia. (And a translation of Ekti by Vinay Dharwadkar.) 104. The Loneliness of the Indian Woman — Episode 259 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Shrayana Bhattacharya). 105. Desperately Seeking Shah Rukh — Shrayana Bhattacharya. 106. Private Truths, Public Lies — Timur Kuran. 107. Ranjit Hoskote, Arundhati Subramaniam and Jerry Pinto on Amazon. 108. Alt News, The News Minute and Scroll. 109. The Reflections of Samarth Bansal — Episode 299 of The Seen and the Unseen. 110. The Intellectual Foundations of Hindutva — Episode 115 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Aakar Patel). 111. Aakar Patel Is Full of Hope — Episode 270 of The Seen and the Unseen. 112. Narendra Modi takes a Great Leap Backwards — Amit Varma (on Demonetisation). 113. Enabled by technology, young Indians show what it means to be a citizen — Amit Varma. 114. Beware of Quacks. Alternative Medicine is Injurious to Health — Amit Varma. 115. The Life and Times of Teesta Setalvad -- Episode 302 of The Seen and the Unseen. 116. Madame Bovary -- Gustave Flaubert. 117. The Brothers Karamazov -- Fyodor Dostoevsky. 118. The World as India -- Susan Sontag. In addition to the links above, Shanta recommended: Books: Women in Love (DH Lawrence), Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka), Ways of Seeing (John Berger), 84, Charing Cross Road (Helene Hanff), The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway), The Tin Drum (Gunter Grass), The Shadow Lines, The Glass Palace, Hungry Tide (all Amitav Ghosh), Solo (Rana Dasgupta), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera), Respected Sir (Naguib Mahfouz), One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez), Midnight's Children (Salman Rushdie), The Sense of an Ending, Flaubert's Parrot, The Noise of Time, Levels of Life (all Julian Barnes). Hindustani Classical Vocal: Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Ustad Amir Khan, Bhimsen Joshi, Padma Talwalkar, Dinkar Kaikini,  Venkatesh Kumar, Ulhas Kashalkar, Uday Bhawalkar (dhrupad), Mukul Shivputra. Carnatic Vocal: MS Subbulakshmi, DK Pattamal, TM Krishna, Sanjay Subrahmanyan. Instrumental: TR Mahalingam (flautist), Lalgudi Jayaraman (violin). Others: Geet Varsha (Kumar Gandharva), Aaj Jaane Ki Zid Na Karo (Farida Khanum), Dnyaneshwari (Lata Mangeshkar). This episode is sponsored by CTQ Compounds. Check out The Daily Reader and FutureStack. Use the code UNSEEN for Rs 2500 off. Check out Amit's online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It's free! Episode art: ‘Reading the World' by Simahina.

Amit Chaudhuri is considered one of the best Indian writers working today. A true renaissance man, he's a poet, essayist and musician, as well as the author of exquisite fiction. As the late Hilary Mantel described him, Chaudhuri "has, like Proust, perfected the art of the moment." His latest book, Sojourn -- set in Berlin -- is an evocative meditation on place and memory. Amit Chaudhuri spoke to Eleanor Wachtel from his home in Kolkata, India.

Hosted by Andrew Keen, Keen On features conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers and writers about the economic, political, and technological issues being discussed in the news, right now. In this episode, Andrew is joined by Amit Chaudhuri, author of Sojourn. Amit Chaudhuri is a novelist, essayist, poet, and musician. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he lives in Calcutta and the United Kingdom. Sojourn is his eighth novel. Among his other works are three books of essays, the most recent of which is The Origins of Dislike; a study of D.H. Lawrence's poetry; a book of short stories, Real Time; two works of non-fiction, the latest of which is Finding the Raga; and four volumes of poetry, including New and Selected Poems (New York Review Poets, 2023). Formerly a professor of contemporary literature at the University of East Anglia, Chaudhuri is now a professor of creative writing and the director of the Centre for the Creative and the Critical at Ashoka University, as well as the editor of www.literaryactivism.com. He has made several recordings of Indian classical and experimental music, and has been awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, and the Indian government's Sahitya Akademi Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The project of Indian art cinema began in the years following independence in 1947, at once evoking the global reach of the term “art film” and speaking to the aspirations of the new nation-state. This episode is a conversation between an author and a historian who are both invested in the histories of cinema and the city, Kolkata in particular. Using ideas in the book Art Cinema and India's Forgotten Futures as a fulcrum, novelist, essayist, poet, and musician Amit Chaudhuri and Rochona Majumdar,  Associate Professor, Departments of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and Cinema and Media Studies, University of Chicago, discuss the role of art films in postcolonial public life. BIC Talks is brought to you by the Bangalore International Centre. Visit the BIC website for show notes, links and more information about the guests.

Today is June 16, Bloomsday, the day in 1904 on which James Joyce's novel Ulysses takes place. But this year also marks the 100th anniversary of its publication, and to celebrate the occasion, The American Scholar asked five writers for their thoughts on Joyce's modern masterpiece. One of them, Flicka Small, wrote about the food in the novel, from the inner organs of beasts and fowls that Leopold Bloom eats with relish to the Gorgonzola on his sandwich—not to mention Molly Bloom's sensuous seed cake, Blazes Boylans's suggestive peaches, and everything that Stephen Daedalus can't afford to eat. Flicka Small came to her lectureship at University College Cork by way of her earlier career as a chef, giving her a singular perspective on the wild array of foods that appear on that famous day in Dublin, Ireland.Go beyond the episode:Read Flicka Small's contribution to our Joyce centennial, “Know Me Come Eat With Me”Read the other four essays: Robert J. Seidman on why Ulysses is as vital as ever; Keri Walsh's celebration of the novel's first publisher, Sylvia Beach; Donal Ryan on the three times he's read it; and Amit Chaudhuri on just having fun with the flowBloomsday 2022 is on in Ireland and around the worldWhip up some pan-fried kidneys, a Gorgonzola sandwich, or some sugarsticky sweetsWe borrowed the title of this episode from Alison Armstrong's excellent 1986 cookbook, The Joyce of Cooking, which you can find in used bookstoresTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today is June 16, Bloomsday, the day in 1904 on which James Joyce's novel Ulysses takes place. But this year also marks the 100th anniversary of its publication, and to celebrate the occasion, The American Scholar asked five writers for their thoughts on Joyce's modern masterpiece. One of them, Flicka Small, wrote about the food in the novel, from the inner organs of beasts and fowls that Leopold Bloom eats with relish to the Gorgonzola on his sandwich—not to mention Molly Bloom's sensuous seed cake, Blazes Boylans's suggestive peaches, and everything that Stephen Dedalus can't afford to eat. Flicka Small came to her lectureship at University College Cork by way of her earlier career as a chef, giving her a singular perspective on the wild array of foods that appear on that famous day in Dublin, Ireland.Go beyond the episode:Read Flicka Small's contribution to our Joyce centennial, “Know Me Come Eat With Me”Read the other four essays: Robert J. Seidman on why Ulysses is as vital as ever; Keri Walsh's celebration of the novel's first publisher, Sylvia Beach; Donal Ryan on the three times he's read it; and Amit Chaudhuri on just having fun with the flowBloomsday 2022 is on in Ireland and around the worldWhip up some pan-fried kidneys, a Gorgonzola sandwich, or some sugarsticky sweetsWe borrowed the title of this episode from Alison Armstrong's excellent 1986 cookbook, The Joyce of Cooking, which you can find in used bookstoresTune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you'd like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

After twenty years novelist and essayist Pankaj Mishra makes a triumphant return to fiction. Described by Amit Chaudhuri as ‘his best work yet' and by Neel Mukherjee as ‘unforgettable', Run and Hide (Hutchinson Heinemann) explores, through the lives of three friends riding the high tide of India's boom years, the implications and human costs of the thirst for wealth and power. Mishra, a regular contributor to the LRB, was in conversation with Lisa Appignanesi. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week's guest is Shruti Swamy, author of debut novel THE ARCHER. What does it mean to pursue art as a woman, especially when society imposes rigid goals and obstacles never cease to block the path forward? Shruti Swamy explores this in her detailed character study of a young Kathak dancer. Vidya, who wishes to devote her life to the classical Indian dance, must eke out an honest existence for herself as family, teachers, friends, and many others cast doubt along the way. With rich prose and loving interpretations of pure dance, we are transported to an India of yesterday, distinctly specific in its detail. It boldly declares that art is not only a calling, but a calling that must be heard. Shruti, a longtime Ursula Le Guin fan, brings to the table a recent read as a new favorite book. ALWAYS COMING HOME, considered the culmination of Le Guin's cultural musings and varied influences, is by no means an easy read. This fictional ethnography of the postapocalyptic Kesh people combines anthropology, poetry, prose, linguistics, and numerous other genres to paint a portrait of this new society. It combines the agrarian with the scientific, bleakness with hope, and is one of the most unique books we've covered on this podcast. Shruti reflects on what makes a novel a novel, what inspires her about Kathak and stories of the Mahabharata, what it means to create a culture and honor existing ones, and so much more. This is a spirited discussion full of recommendations aplenty, and no spoilers. Find Shruti and buy the book at shrutiswamy.com Follow the podcast on instagram and twitter @yfbpodcast Books discussed in this episode: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin, Curb by Divya Victor, Kith by Divya Victor, Finding the Raga by Amit Chaudhuri

Author and Indian classical singer Amit Chaudhuri talks to BBC Music Magazine about his relationship with western and Indian classical music, the allegories and narratives that can be created within music and his experience of working as the librettist on Ravi Shankar's opera Sukanya.His latest book, Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music, was published recently by Faber, and is part memoir/part essay, focused on his enduring love for Indian classical music and the power of the voice.Music featured:Jimi Hendrix: Voodoo Chile BluesUstad Dilshad Khan: Raga TodiKishori Amonkar: Raga Shuddh Kalyan – Khyal In Drut TeentalPandit Bhimsen Joshi: Sun Surat RangiliVishmadev Chatterjee: Bamana De BataBeethoven: Symphony No. 7 (Berlin Philharmonic/Herbert von Karajan)Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 7 (Jonathan Biss)Ravi Shankar: Sukanya (London Philharmonic Orchestra/David Murphy)Listen to all the music featured in this episode on our Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3j2hzTzleS7cTs6GdIyDwa?si=dfca6ff7b9354707 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dismissal, in fact, is the default response to khayal (the preeminent genre of North Indian classical music), well before we get to know what khayal is, and vaguely term its strangeness 'classical music'. Those who later become acquainted with its extraordinary melodiousness forget that on the initial encounter it had sounded unmelodious. These words are part of the introduction to Amit Chaudhuri's newest book Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music (New York Review Books / Faber and Faber, 2021). The book is part guide to Indian music, part memoir of Chaudhuri's life, part examination of modern culture. In this interview, I ask Amit to explain what makes Indian music so special, both in general and to his life. We explore how Indian music influenced the writing of this most recent book, and how his musical experiences in India and abroad have affected how he sees the world. Amit Chaudhuri is the author of seven novels, several collections of short stories, poetry and essays, one nonfiction work, and a critical study of D.H. Lawrence's poetry. He has received the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Betty Trask Award, the Encore Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Sahitya Akademi Award, among other accolades. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds the titles of Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia in England and Professor of Creative Writing at Ashoka University in India. In addition to his writing, he is also a singer in the North Indian classical tradition and a composer and performer in a project that brings together the raga, blues, and jazz with a variety of other musical traditions. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Finding the Raga. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/asian-review

Dismissal, in fact, is the default response to khayal (the preeminent genre of North Indian classical music), well before we get to know what khayal is, and vaguely term its strangeness 'classical music'. Those who later become acquainted with its extraordinary melodiousness forget that on the initial encounter it had sounded unmelodious. These words are part of the introduction to Amit Chaudhuri’s newest book Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music (New York Review Books / Faber and Faber, 2021). The book is part guide to Indian music, part memoir of Chaudhuri’s life, part examination of modern culture. In this interview, I ask Amit to explain what makes Indian music so special, both in general and to his life. We explore how Indian music influenced the writing of this most recent book, and how his musical experiences in India and abroad have affected how he sees the world. Amit Chaudhuri is the author of seven novels, several collections of short stories, poetry and essays, one nonfiction work, and a critical study of D.H. Lawrence’s poetry. He has received the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Betty Trask Award, the Encore Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Sahitya Akademi Award, among other accolades. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds the titles of Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia in England and Professor of Creative Writing at Ashoka University in India. In addition to his writing, he is also a singer in the North Indian classical tradition and a composer and performer in a project that brings together the raga, blues, and jazz with a variety of other musical traditions. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Finding the Raga. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Dismissal, in fact, is the default response to khayal (the preeminent genre of North Indian classical music), well before we get to know what khayal is, and vaguely term its strangeness 'classical music'. Those who later become acquainted with its extraordinary melodiousness forget that on the initial encounter it had sounded unmelodious. These words are part of the introduction to Amit Chaudhuri’s newest book Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music (New York Review Books / Faber and Faber, 2021). The book is part guide to Indian music, part memoir of Chaudhuri’s life, part examination of modern culture. In this interview, I ask Amit to explain what makes Indian music so special, both in general and to his life. We explore how Indian music influenced the writing of this most recent book, and how his musical experiences in India and abroad have affected how he sees the world. Amit Chaudhuri is the author of seven novels, several collections of short stories, poetry and essays, one nonfiction work, and a critical study of D.H. Lawrence’s poetry. He has received the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Betty Trask Award, the Encore Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Sahitya Akademi Award, among other accolades. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds the titles of Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia in England and Professor of Creative Writing at Ashoka University in India. In addition to his writing, he is also a singer in the North Indian classical tradition and a composer and performer in a project that brings together the raga, blues, and jazz with a variety of other musical traditions. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Finding the Raga. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

Dismissal, in fact, is the default response to khayal (the preeminent genre of North Indian classical music), well before we get to know what khayal is, and vaguely term its strangeness 'classical music'. Those who later become acquainted with its extraordinary melodiousness forget that on the initial encounter it had sounded unmelodious. These words are part of the introduction to Amit Chaudhuri’s newest book Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music (New York Review Books / Faber and Faber, 2021). The book is part guide to Indian music, part memoir of Chaudhuri’s life, part examination of modern culture. In this interview, I ask Amit to explain what makes Indian music so special, both in general and to his life. We explore how Indian music influenced the writing of this most recent book, and how his musical experiences in India and abroad have affected how he sees the world. Amit Chaudhuri is the author of seven novels, several collections of short stories, poetry and essays, one nonfiction work, and a critical study of D.H. Lawrence’s poetry. He has received the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Betty Trask Award, the Encore Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Sahitya Akademi Award, among other accolades. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds the titles of Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia in England and Professor of Creative Writing at Ashoka University in India. In addition to his writing, he is also a singer in the North Indian classical tradition and a composer and performer in a project that brings together the raga, blues, and jazz with a variety of other musical traditions. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Finding the Raga. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Dismissal, in fact, is the default response to khayal (the preeminent genre of North Indian classical music), well before we get to know what khayal is, and vaguely term its strangeness 'classical music'. Those who later become acquainted with its extraordinary melodiousness forget that on the initial encounter it had sounded unmelodious. These words are part of the introduction to Amit Chaudhuri’s newest book Finding the Raga: An Improvisation on Indian Music (New York Review Books / Faber and Faber, 2021). The book is part guide to Indian music, part memoir of Chaudhuri’s life, part examination of modern culture. In this interview, I ask Amit to explain what makes Indian music so special, both in general and to his life. We explore how Indian music influenced the writing of this most recent book, and how his musical experiences in India and abroad have affected how he sees the world. Amit Chaudhuri is the author of seven novels, several collections of short stories, poetry and essays, one nonfiction work, and a critical study of D.H. Lawrence’s poetry. He has received the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Betty Trask Award, the Encore Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the Sahitya Akademi Award, among other accolades. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds the titles of Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia in England and Professor of Creative Writing at Ashoka University in India. In addition to his writing, he is also a singer in the North Indian classical tradition and a composer and performer in a project that brings together the raga, blues, and jazz with a variety of other musical traditions. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Finding the Raga. Follow on Facebook or on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The deeply intellectual nature of Hindustani classical music, the path of Indian modernity, and the new intolerance for beauty that arose in the 1980s and has led to the current hostility to nuance in every sphere... Amit Chaudhuri, author of Finding the Raga, talks to Manjula Narayan about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

The deeply intellectual nature of Hindustani classical music, the path of Indian modernity, and the new intolerance for beauty that arose in the 1980s and has led to the current hostility to nuance in every sphere... Amit Chaudhuri, author of Finding the Raga, talks to Manjula Narayan about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast.

Taking his lead from Duke Ellington, Amit Chaudhuri ponders what we mean by “my people”. He asks whether we need to create new, more inclusive, categories fit for modern times in order to describe the groups we belong to. Producer: Adele Armstrong

The American sculptor Michael Rakowitz on how his own Iraqi heritage drove him to make art about the disappearance of artefacts and people. From shame to sympathy - New Generation Thinker Emily Cock looks at the way the British State used facial disfigurement to mark criminals for life. Nicholas Jubber has travelled Europe from Iceland to Turkey exploring the popularity of ancient epic tales - and ahead of the British Academy's summer showcase, we hear from Turkey about new ways of involving local villages in the cultural heritage around them.....and how a conversation between primatologists and archaeologists are refining the story of how stone tool use developed. Michael Radowitz Whitechapel Gallery London 4 June 2019 – 25 August 2019 Nicholas Jubber's book 'Epic Continent' out now Emily Cock teaches at Cardiff University and holds a Leverhulme Fellowship for her research project Fragile Faces: Disfigurement in Britain & its Colonies (1600–1850). Isilay Gursu Cultural Heritage Management Fellow British Institute at Ankara and Tomos Proffitt, Institute of Archaeology, British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow University College London both appearing in British Academy Summer Showcase 21 - 22 June 2019 https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/ New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC and the AHRC to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio. Image: Michael Rakowitz (portrait) with The invisible enemy should not exist (Northwest palace of Nimrud, Room N) 2018 (Photo John Nguyen/PA Wire, Courtesy Whitechapel Gallery) You can hear a discussion of The Odyssey with Amit Chaudhuri, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Daniel Mendelsohn and Emily Wilson https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09kqjc0 Producer: Jacqueline Smith

How do you get to the end when there’s no where to get? Authors Evelyn Hampton and Amit Chaudhuri read and discuss fictions of anxiety, memory, autobiography, and impersonation, taking us there one sentence at a time. Booksellers Freddie and Joe chime in on Co-op staff favorites W.G. Sebald, Annie Dilliard, and more.

Conceptual artist Katie Paterson on art which produces candles scented with planetary odours – one of Saturn's moons has a hint of cherry…and how she and co-exhibitor the Romantic painter JMW Turner share an interest in the precise nature of moon light. Writers Julia Blackburn and Charlotte Runcie on the gaze of the beachcomber and searching for lost worlds along the tideline and Cutty Sark curator Hannah Stockton explains why the story of the famous tea cutter is one of survival. A place that exists only in moonlight: Katie Paterson & JMW Turner at Turner Contemporary Margate until May 6th 2019 Katie Paterson's First There is a Mountain project will tour 25 coastal beach locations from 31 March to 27 October 2019 Time Song: In Search of Doggerland by Julia Blackburn mixes personal history with the archaeological evidence for the Mesolithic peoples who lived on the land beneath the North Sea. Salt On Your Tongue - Women and the Sea by Charlotte Runcie describes her pregnancy and the death of her grandmother, set against shore walking and myths of women and the sea from ancient Greece to Scottish folk song. Cutty Sark 150 includes a range of events at Royal Museums Greenwich including a performance by the BBC Singers and of the Pirates of Penzance. You can hear a Free Thinking Landmark discussion of The Odyssey with Karen McCarthy Woolf, Amit Chaudhuri, Emily Wilson and Daniel Mendelsohn https://bbc.in/2S2QuiE and a discussion of Mermaids with Imogen Hermes Gowar and Sarah Peverley https://bbc.in/2FPeEH5 Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Imagine being swept along the streets of Calcutta by a crowd of over three hundred thousand people all visiting fantastical temporary pandals which are built from clay, silt, wicker, and papier-mache by local artisans every year to celebrate the festival of Durga Puja. Acclaimed writer and local resident Amit Chaudhuri, along with family members and friends, go pandal-hopping across the neighbourhoods of the city to tell the story of how the Hindu goddess Durga leaves her spiritual realm for five days every autumn and visits her mortal devotees to allow them to be seen by her. This devotional reassurance takes place inside the pandals which all contain an effigy, a murti, of Durga and curiously, displays reflecting particular current issues, from the overtly political to the blatantly commercial. Each neighbourhood has spent the previous year raising funds for the structures and over the years, the building of the pandals and their murti has become increasingly competitive, with each district vying to outdo the others in an carnival-like celebration of spirituality that is as much about Disney as it is about deity. The festival concludes when Durga returns to her spiritual home and the pandals no longer have purpose. They are dismantled and, followed by vast crowds, taken to the Ganges and immersed in the fast-flowing water where they dissolve and return as the silt which will be used to make new pandals for next year’s Durga Puja. Additional writing, editing and post production by John Wakefield. Location recording by Shuva Chakraborti. Producer: Roger James Elsgood (Photo: The street and houses leading up to the brothel pandal with dummies of sex workers. Credit: Amit Chaudhuri)

The director Paulette Randall brings to the stage the ultimate tale of sacrifice in the pursuit of power: Doctor Faustus. She tells Andrew Marr how, in coveting fame, power and knowledge, he sells his soul to the devil. This bargain with the devil is one of the most iconic cultural motifs in the Western tradition. The poet and writer Ann Wroe looks to another founding story of Christianity, that of St Francis of Assisi. Born into luxury he forsakes it all after hearing the voice of God commanding him to rebuild the Church and live in poverty. Wroe writes his life story in verse and see echoes of it all around her today. The philosopher Julian Baggini sees such ancient stories as helping to explore and explain how people think in the West. But in his new book, How the World Thinks, he admits his own failures to learn about the stories and early philosophies which have come out of the East. Without them, he argues, you cannot understand the development of distinct cultures around the world. The novelist and essayist Amit Chaudhuri has looked far and wide for his influences, from Nobel laureate Tagore and filmmaker Satyajit Ray to Cervantes’s Don Quixote. In The Origins of Dislike he explores the way writers understand their work both in antithesis to, and affinity with, past writers and movements from around the world. Producer: Katy Hickman

We were joined by Amit Chaudhuri to discuss of his essay collection The Origins of Dislike, which tackles questions of art and the artist, and the relationship between the two.

Gandhi's power, portable citizenship and Indian writing. Rana Mitter talks to Ramachandra Guha about his new biography of Gandhi, hears about "portable citizenship from Indrajit Roy and discusses Indian writing and literary tradition with Amit Chaudhuri and Sandeep Parmar. Rana also breaks off from the subcontinent briefly to explore the mysterious disappearance of China's biggest film star, Fan Bingbing with the historian, Julia Lovell. Ramachandra Guha has written Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World, 1915-1948 Amit Chaudhuri's new collection of essays is called The Origins of Dislike: A Geneaology of Writerly Discontent New Generation Thinker Sandeep Parmar is a poet and Professor of English at the University of Liverpool whose books include Reading Mina Loy's Autobiographies: Myth of the Modern Woman. Dr Indrajit Roy lectures at the University of York and is the author of Politics of the Poor in Contemporary India Julia Lovell is the author of The Opium War and will publish a global history of Maoism next year. Arvind Krishna Mehrotra is the author of four books of poems, most recently The Transfiguring Places. His Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets (1992) and his An Illustrated History of Indian Literature in English (2003) have helped shaped ways of looking at Indian writing. Producer: Zahid Warley

A live event all about the wonderful new collection, 'Tales from a Master's Notebook, Stories Henry James Never Wrote' http://po.st/1tAWOl Follow us on twitter: twitter.com/vintagebooksSign up to our bookish newsletter to hear all about our new releases, see exclusive extracts and win prizes: po.st/vintagenewsletterWhen Henry James died he left behind a series of notebooks filled with ideas for novels and stories that he never wrote. Now ten of our best contemporary authors and James enthusiasts have written new short stories based on these 'germs' of ideas. Differing dramatically in setting and style, these stories are modern interpretations of the richly suggestive and enticing notes that Henry James left behind, offering a fresh and original approach to a canonical literary author.Professor Philip Horne, a renowned authority on Henry James, has edited and introduced this collection, which also includes transcripts of James’s original jottings allowing readers to trace the raw ideas through to their modern-day interpretations.Contains stories by Colm Toibin, Rose Tremain, Jonathan Coe, Paul Theroux, Amit Chaudhuri, Giles Foden, Joseph O'Neill, Lynne Truss, Susie Boyt and Tessa Hadley.WITH A FOREWORD BY MICHAEL WOODRead more at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1111097/tales-from-a-master-s-notebook/#ogCrVtOmfckA0Ebj.99 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Amit Chaudhuri on why he believes modern movies have a "spiritual glumness". "Digitisation's subterranean agenda", he says, "is to repress natural light." Unlike old black and white films which were flooded in natural light, he sees the light of digitisation as a grey light. "We're meant to be distracted by drama, violence and special effects; but, crucially, enchantment is withheld from us." Producer: Adele Armstrong.

"Calcutta was born old", writes Amit Chaudhuri. But restoration work of old buildings in the city, he says, "is now often based on the assumption that an old building...must have once looked new, or should have". He says restoration in Calcutta - and in many other cities around the world - must stop fetishizing the new.

Amit Chaudhuri, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Daniel Mendelsohn and Emily Wilson join Philip Dodd to explore translating, rewriting and using Homer's epic work to frame a memoir. Emily Wilson has published a new translation of The Odyssey Daniel Mendelsohn has written An Odyssey: A Father, A Son and An Epic Karen McCarthy Woolf wrote Nightshift as part of a BBC Radio 4's Odyssey Project which commissioned ten writers to create a contemporary response. Her most recent collection is called Seasonal Disturbances. Amit Chaudhuri has written a novel called Odysseus Abroad which draws on A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and The Odyssey.

Can you buy good taste? Kelly Hoppen and Nicky Haslam have the answers. Chaudhuri discusses his mini masterpiece 'Friend of My Youth'. Later, Vince Cable, Ruth Rogers and Jeremy Paxman confess their darkest secrets. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Worlds Literature Festival is a private space, where writers can debate and ask difficult questions and issue provocations in a safe, protected, inspiring environment. We're excited to provide a glimpse into the world of Worlds, with two provocations on the theme of (Up-)Staging Shakespeare. First we have Amit Chaudhuri: novelist, critic and musician. His latest novel is Odysseus Abroad. He's won more prizes than I have time to list, including Commonwealth Writers Prize, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a professor of contemporary literature at the University of East Anglia. Following Amit is Edward Wilson-Lee, whose first book, Shakespeare in Swahili-Land, is a travelogue and cultural history of East Africa which recovers the surprising story of the playwright's central role in the region's past. Edward teaches Shakespeare and Renaissance literature in Cambridge and is currently working on his second book.

With the publication of Dirt Road, Scotland’s only Booker Prize winner joins a Scottish publisher for the first time in decades. This brilliantly accessible road movie of a novel arrives with Canongate’s typical panache, alongside a film adaptation of the book. In this event recorded live at the 2016 Edinburgh International Book Festival, James Kelman, the writer described by Amit Chaudhuri as ‘the greatest living British novelist’, discusses perhaps his most significant novel yet with Brian Taylor.

The second part of my chat with Amit Chaudhuri began with a discussion of his literary inheritance - that combined Philip Larkin with Tagore. ----more----From there we headed towards Bengali culture and onwards to: Ideas of 'ownership' of culture - Bengali and EnglishEnglish conceptions of India and 'Asia'class in India and Englandfinding your voice as a writerdiscovering that your subject is 'the rhythms of the everyday' 'What you see on the street, from a window, a balcony...Maybe even the toilet and the bath as private spaces where you achieve certain kind of movements...'the influence of Ulysses - for and againsta Portrait of Chaudhuri of a Young (Tolstory and Joyce) Reader'I suddenly realised that Tolstoy's way was not going to be my way'reading, writing and daydreaminglooking, place and translation - Dublin and Calcuttafalling love with DH Lawrence - 'the everyday was always being transformed'the problems of plotmemoir v autobiographical fiction'I am not in any conventional way interested in autobiography'stories and repetition further thoughts on Joyce and the 'joy in the provisional'writing as an act of memorialisation 'For me, more alive means all the inconsequential, random things that make up our lives'Homer - Odysseus meets his sonwas writing Odysseus Abroad cathartic in any wayChaudhuri as musicianAnd with that, pretty much, Chaudhuri's taxi arrived. For James Wood's review in The New Yorker, click here.

Amit Chaudhuri is a novelist, academic and musician whose books include A New World, The Immortals and most recently Odysseus Abroad. ----more----His talent for close observation of everyday details, events and characters have earned him comparison to Proust, though Chaudhuri tends to work on rather smaller canvasses. We met in an extremely noisy cafe in Oxford, and began by discussing Chaudhuri's own time as a postgraduate student in the city over two decades earlier. In the same way that this period inspired his second novel, Afternoon Raag, Chaudhuri's arrival in London and undergraduate degree in English at University College is the basis for Odysseus Abroad. As well as describing an early love of poetry, the novel traces through its allusive form a love of Homer and James Joyce. In the first part of our conversation, we also talked about: his ambition to be a poethis early career as a novelist and academicwhy Oxford didn't inspire him as a writerhis memories of literary students and England's intellectual cultureChadhuri's first visits to England in the 1970sracism, Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcherwhy Chaudhuri wrote about undergraduate days in Londonhow a memoir became a novel thanks to Homer's Odysseyhow Chaudhuri's Uncle Radesh the uncle in Odysseus Abroadhow a charcoal sketch, 'Ulysses', by the Indian painter FN Sousa shaped the character of Uncle RadeshUncle Radesh becomes Odysseus, Chaudhuri becomes Telemachusten years later, Chaudhui begins to write a memoirhow Stephen Daedelus turned the book into a novel about unhappiness and alienation in Londonhow an Indian literary student reads Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?''I learned about language through the weather. I also learned about my love of light and of life through London'the importance of travel and living 'abroad' for Chaudhuri's writingpoetry as Chaudhuri's first love'I am far more excited by discovering the German poet Gunter Eich than anything on the Booker Prize shortlist, with very good reason'time, slowness and Chaudhuri's prosepopular culture and why Chaudhuri loves The Simpsons. Amit Chaudhuri's website can be found here. 

Katharine Norbury's affecting memoir The Fish Ladder (Bloomsbury) deals with grief, recovery and the redemptive power of stories and journeys. Abandoned as a baby in a Liverpool convent, Norbury was brought up by loving adoptive parents. As an adult, and having recently suffered a miscarriage, she embarked with her nine-year-old daughter on a journey to trace a river from sea to source. The novelist and critic Amit Chaudhuri has described her book about that journey as an 'extraordinary exploration of how we use narrative to understand our place in the world'. Katharine Norbury was joined at the shop by novelist, poet and fellow memoirist Blake Morrison for an evening of literary conversation. Blake Morrison's many books include two masterpieces of family literature And When Did You Last See Your Father? (Granta) and Things My Mother Never Told Me (Vintage). His latest title Shingle Street (Chatto) is his first full-length poetry collection for nearly 30 years. Set on and around the Suffolk coast, it handles matters personal, political and ecological with Morrison's characteristic honesty and verbal dexterity. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Whose Strife Is It Anyway? Amit Chaudhuri, Gaiutra Bahadur and Aamer Ahmed Khan discuss depictions of the powerless in fiction and factual reporting with Rana Mitter. Chaudhuri has explored life in Calcutta in many of his novels and essays; Badhadur's book Coolie Woman: The Odyssesy of Indenture takes the history of her great grandmother and examines the status of women who worked as labourers on sugar plantations; Khan is an editor for the Urdu section of the BBC's World Service. Recorded on Sunday 27th October 2013 in front of a live audience at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking festival.

Start the Week is at the Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival in Gateshead. Anne McElvoy talks to the historian Catherine Merridale about the Kremlin - a Russian fortress which has retained its original medieval function to intimidate and control, and which holds a special place in the imagination. Few buildings in England inspire such fear, but Simon Thurley explores how the country's architecture has influenced the world. The Newcastle-born writer Michael Chaplin looks to the history of the River Tyne to understand the changing fortunes of the city and its population; and the Indian writer Amit Chaudhuri attempts to save the remnants of Calcutta's colonial past under its ever-changing skyline. Producer: Katy Hickman.

Jane Jacobs, in writing about the rise and fall of great cities, talks about a quality even meaner than urban ugliness or disorder.  That is, the idea of “pretend order,” achieved she says by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist and to be served.  This real order “is what make cities flourish and diversity sprout and makes them strange and unpredictable.” This, as Jacobs explains, is not a drawback, it is the point of cites.  A city that for a long time embodied this ethos, is Calcutta.  And while it may be changing and homogenizing today, esteemed author Amit Chaudhuri, captures its essence in his newest work Calcutta: Two Years in the CityMy conversation with Amit Chauduri:  

World Book Club’s Harriett Gilbert talks to the acclaimed Indian writer Amit Chaudhuri, in front of a multi-national audience and listeners around the world at the Nehru Centre in London. Chaudhuri will discuss his novel The Immortals, which is about the place of Indian classical music in the modern world. Set in the heart of the world of the Bombay middle class, it tells the story of three very different classical-musicians whose lives thread in and out of each other in 1970s and 80s Bombay. The city itself is on a roll -- expanding, growing ever richer and more glittery -- and the novel's main characters are variously jostled by the changes taking place around them. But they're also struggling with such matters as the place of musical tradition in the modern world, and the need to earn a living while pursuing an artistic vocation. Amit Chaudhuri himself is a musician as well as author and he talks about how contemporary Indian classical music is currently in a moribund state, as it takes a great deal of commitment to be successful. And in a novel filled with strong and lively characters, Amit explains how difficult he finds it to write characters, and how in his work as a teacher of creative writing, he finds characterisation impossible to teach. Hear him also read three extracts from The Immortals and take calls from listeners in Delhi and Pennsylvania who will bring their own international perspective to the story.

Peter D. McDonald talks to Amit Chaudhuri about his work as a novelist, critic and musician, focusing on his interest in the specificity of the many media he uses and on the challenge of thinking about cultural interconnectedness in new ways.

Mariella Frostrup discusses what defines a Jewish novel with stand up comedian, tv presenter & novelist David Baddiel and writer & broadaster Naomi Alderman, as Jewish Book week begins in London. Jim Crace talks about his new novel Harvest, which will also be his last as he has announced he is retiring as a novelist. And Indian writer Amit Chaudhuri explains why, after setting three novels in his native Calcutta, he has turned to non-fiction in his new account of the city.

Novelist, poet and musician Amit Chaudhuri joins Samira Ahmed to discuss his latest book which reflects on his relationship with Calcutta. Clifford Longley and Peter Stanford discuss the unexpected resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. Susannah Clapp joins us for a first-night review of Robert Lepage's Playing Cards 1: Spades, the latest production by one of theatre's boldest and most innovative directors. And former Whitehall insider Gill Bennett lifts the lid on the workings of British foreign policy.

Professor Peter McDonald draws on the work of Indian novelist and literary critic, Amit Chaudhuri, to open up new ways of how we can think about D.H. Lawrence, not only as a Modernist, but also as a Post/Colonial writer. Peter then turns to Lawrence's short story, 'The Woman Who Rode Away' (1924), set in rural Mexico, in order to demonstrate how his literature runs against the grain of distinctly Western modes of thought.