The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian

Nirad C. Chaudhuri (1897–1999) was born in the town of Kishorganj in East Bengal in the year of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. His first book, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, was published in 1951 and was followed by many others, including The Continent of Circe, for which he won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize, and Thy Hand Great Anarch!, a second volume of memoirs. Chaudhuri moved to England in 1970. In 1992 Queen Elizabeth II conferred upon him the title of Honorary Commander of the British Empire. »

Ian Jack has edited Granta since 1995. He began his career in journalism on a weekly newspaper in Scotland in the 1960s. Between 1970 and 1986 he worked for the Sunday Times as a reporter, editor, feature writer and foreign correspondent (mainly in the Indian Subcontinent). He was a co-founder of the Independent on Sunday in 1989 and edited that newspaper between 1991 and 1995. His awards in Britain include those for reporter, journalist and editor of the year. A book of his writing about Britain, Before the Oil Ran Out, was published by Secker and Warburg in 1987 and republished by Vintage in 1997. He lives with his family in London. »

The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian

By Nirad C. Chaudhuri
Introduction by Ian Jack

The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian is an astonishing work of self-discovery and the revelation of a peerless and provocative sensibility. Describing his childhood in the Bengali countryside and his youth in Calcutta—and telling the story of modern India from his own fiercely independent viewpoint—Chaudhuri fashions a book of deep conviction, charm, and intimacy that is also a masterpiece of the writer's art.

Read the introduction (PDF)

Reviews

I know of no other autobiography that illustrates with such detail, sharp wit, and style the complete absorption of two differing cultures: Bengali and European.
— Jay Weaver, University Bookstore, Seattle, WA

No better account of the penetration of the Indian mind by the West—and by extension, of the penetration of one culture by another—will be or now can be written.
— V. S. Naipaul

The autobiographer Nirad Chaudhuri has been, throughout his long life, an erudite, contrary and mischievous presence... That he has swum so strongly against the current has not, however, prevented The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian from being recognized as the masterpiece that it is.
— Salman Rushdie

Reading this book is to be immersed in India, you feel you are living that life, such is the power of this acute, stubbornly honest, capaciously minded writer to recreate his times.
— Doris Lessing

Also see:

India: A Mosaic
Introduction by Arundhati Roy
Edited by Barbara Epstein
and Robert B. Silvers

Nine essays on India, all originally published in The New York Review of Books.

The Life of Henry Brulard
By Stendhal
Preface by Lydia Davis
Translated and with an introduction by John Sturrock

The Life of Henry Brulard is a vivid memoir that is also an extraordinary work of the imagination.

English, August
By Upamanyu Chatterjee
Introduction by Akhil Sharma

A satirical look at Indian society by an internationally acclaimed writer.

Format: Paperback
Retail Price: $19.95
Price: $15.96 (20% off)

Sep 30, 2001
560 pages
ISBN: 094032282X
9780940322820
Biography & Memoir
NYRB Classics
History

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