Author Upamanyu Chatterjee was in Chennai recently for the launch of his latest novel Way to Go. At an event put together by Penguin Books India and Taj Connemara, this witty, ever-smiling author read out a few passages from his novel, which left the audience in splits. Way to Go is a sequel to his second book, The Last Burden.
Published under the literary imprint Hamish Hamilton, the novel is about the 85-and-a-half year-old paralysed Shyamanand on his death bed who goes missing. In powerful, austere prose shot through with black humour, the author has produced an intensely moving examination of family ties and the redemptive power of love, however imperfect, in the midst of death and degeneration.
Ask him if he’d ever try non-fiction and he responds, “In a very old fashioned sense I like fiction. I can’t see myself doing non-fiction.” When asked how Indian writers are received abroad and within the country, he says it really depends from person to person.
Upamanyu’s published works include short stories and the novels August: An Indian Story (1988), The Last Burden (1993), The Mammaries of the Welfare State (2000), which won the Sahitya Akademi Award for writing in English, and Weight Loss (2006).
Full report here New Indian Express
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