AMIT CHAUDHURI

Chaudhuri's collection of stories and nonfiction pieces includes work by R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao, Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie, Nirmal Verma, and others--among them Rabindrinath Tagore, India's only N

The new novel about the present, the past, and the slippage between private and public life-from a writer who has like Proust, mastered the art of the moment. (Hilary Mantel)An unnamed man arrives in Berlin as a visiting professor. It is a place fused with Western history and cultural fracture lines. He moves along its streets and pavements; through its department stores, museums and restaurants. He befriends Faqrul, an enigmatic exiled poet, and Birgit, a woman with whom he shares the vagaries of attraction. He tries to understand his white-haired cleaner. Berlin is a riddle-he becomes lost not only in the city but in its legacy.Sealed off in his own solitude, and as his visiting professorship passes, the narrator awaits transformation and meaning. Ultimately, he starts to understand that the less sure he becomes of his place in the moment, the more he knows his way.

In Friend of My Youth, a novelist named Amit Chaudhuri visits his childhood home of Bombay. The city, reeling from the impact of the 2008 terrorist attacks, weighs heavily on Amits mind, as does the unexpected absence of his childhood friend Ramu, a drifting, opaque figure who is Amits last remaining connection to the city he once called home.

**WINNER OF THE JAMES TAIT BLACK PRIZE**A splendid book.Literary ReviewA modern masterpiece.New York Journal of Books Finding the Raga is Amit Chaudhuris revelatory exploration of North Indian classical music: an ancient, evolving tradition whose principles and practises will alter the readers notion of what music might - and can - be.Through essay, memoir and cultural study, Chaudhuri dwells on the musics most distinctive and mysterious characteristics, resulting in a gift of a book for musicians and music lovers, and for any creative mind in search of diverse and transforming inspiration.Supple, intricate and uncompromising, full of delicate observation and insight. -Geoff Dyer[A] compelling meditation on Indian and Western art-making.The New Yorker