Monday, September 19, 2011

Chetan Bhagat on his new book


Seven years ago an Indian investment banker penned a story of three friends at the Indian Institute of Technology, one of the country’s top schools. Soon after, the book became a best seller, hugely popular among India’s college crowd. Same thing happened a year later, when he published his second novel, this time on the life of call center employees .

The books were Five Point Someone (2004) and One Night @ the Call Center (2005). The former banker is Chetan Bhagat, an author credited with having helped extend the reach of literature to a broader audience in India. While some critics initially brushed off his success as mere fluke, his lasting popularity proved them wrong. Among the country’s teenagers and twenty-somethings, he is little short of a youth icon. Last year, he even made it in Time magazine’s list of “100 Most Influential People in the World.”

His books have gone on to become Bollywood hits, the most successful of which has been “3 Idiots,” a blockbuster inspired by his first novel starring Aamir Khan.

After tackling the sensitive topic of the Gujarat riots in The 3 Mistakes of My Life, (2008) and inter-communal marriages in his 2 States, Mr. Bhagat’s fifth book is set for release in October.

Full report here WSJ

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