What is Suprose?

Welcome to Suprose.

Why Su-prose? "Su" in Sanskrit is a prefix for "good". This is a place where we will discuss and analyze prose (with a South Asian Connection) - that which is good, awesome, excellent, and maybe rant about prose that could be better.

Whether you love prose, are a prose expert, or want to learn more about prose, or to put it simply want to have anything to do with prose, this blog is for you.

Read, interact, enjoy and share...

Search This Blog

Friday, May 12, 2006

The Revival of August…

The sudden interest in the Indian way of life has resulted in several Indian writers works being republished in the US of late. Upamanyu Chatterjee’s, semi-autobiographical novel “English, August – An Indian Story” was republished by the New York Review of Books in April 2006. An introduction by Akhil Sharma precedes the novel, which is about a young IAS officer, Agastya Sen, who is sent to Madna, a fictitious city on his first assignment.
Compared to a sloth, Agastya, better known as August, comes from a very elite society and is thrown into the world of civil servants, a legacy of the British Raj, right after his graduation. He spends his time indulging in senseless absurdities and discovering the languid life of the civil servants in Madna, one of the hottest towns in India. Chatterjee, a civil servant himself, could not be more diagnostic of the life of IAS officers.
What stands out about this novel, was that it was written at a time when India’s generation X was looking for its own voice, and they found it in Chatterjee’s novel. Writer, Suketu Mehta, describes Chatterjee’s book perfectly when he says, “ It is the “Indianest” novel in English that I know of. Utterly uncompromised, wildly funny, and a revelation of everyday life in Modern India.” How true.

No comments:

Post a Comment