47 years after he created a sensation with his best-selling novel about a hotel in his native Kolkata, Bengali writer Sankar is kicking up a literary storm in the West, says an IANS report. Sankar, whose real name is Mani Sankar Mukherjee, has turned out to be the surprise triumph of the ongoing London Book Fair - feted by academics, lauded by reviewers and mobbed by fans.
From heavyweights such as Vikram Seth to relative unknowns, Sankar’s admirers have lined up to be photographed with him. At age 75, Sankar couldn’t be a happier man today.
His 1962 novel Chowringhee has been translated into dozens of Indian languages, sold hundreds of thousands of copies in India and Bangladesh and made into a film that is a Bengali cine-classic.
But for all his success in India, he has been a virtual unknown in the West. “For 47 years I had this typically Bengali arrogance about me. ‘Let them come to me,’ I said, ‘I won’t go to them’,” Sankar told IANS.
“That is what happened. And now I feel relaxed. You know, it’s been worth the wait,” said Sankar with a broad smile.
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