RESULTS

The essays assembled in Clearing a Space, written over the last 15 years, cover an astonishing range of subjects. The writer treats himself as a specimen for an exploration of what it means to be a modern Indian in relation to the West. Personal memoir gives readers a glance into a nation's history; his relationship to the West provides insight into India's national relationship to the West; his struggle to define 'Indianness' for himself becomes a paradigm of searching for Indian identity. With the same elegance and intelligence for which the author has become known, Chaudhuri writes anecdotally in these essays about Indian popular culture and high culture, travel and location in Paris, Bombay, Dublin, Calcutta and Berlin, empire and nationalism, Indian and Western cinema, music, art and literature, politics, race, cosmopolitanism, urban landscapes, Hollywood and Bollywood, Anglophone India, internationalism, globalisation, the Indian English tradition that pre-dates Rushdie, post-colonialism and much more.

Shyamji has music in his blood, for his father was the acclaimed 'heavenly singer' and guru, Ram Lal. But Shyam Lal is not his father, and knows he never will be. Mallika Sengupta's voice could have made her famous, but being the wife of a successful businessman is a full-time occupation in itself. Mallika's son, Nirmalya, believes in suffering for his art, and for him, all compromise is failure: those with talent should be true to that talent. No matter what. Written in haunting, melodic prose, The Immortals tells the story - or stories - of Shyam, Mallika and Nirmalya: their relationships, their lives, their music. More than that, though, it is also the story of music itself, of music as art, and an exploration of its place in the modern world of money and commerce.

Blending the personal with the fictional, Real Time consists of a selection of short stories and a memoir told in verse. The short stories are moving and inspiring, some told almost as if they are reminiscences as he explores the after-effects of colonisation on India. Others are enticing retellings of Hindu myths such as the story of Ramayana. The finale to the collection, Chaudhuri's poetic memoir, E-Minor, is an elegant exploration of his Bombay childhood.
'He is at his best in E-Minor when reminiscing about his Bombay upbringing, the times he returned to the city from London.' The Independent

Respected writer Amit Chaudhuri has assembled an eclectic selection of writing that offers important insights into the country's literary traditions.  Featuring work in translation from Hindi, Bengali, Urdu and other Indian languages, alongside writing in English from the past 150 years, this is an invaluable introduction to the major modern writing and writers of India.