Neel Mukherjee was born in Calcutta, India, in 1970. He studied English Literature at Oxford and Cambridge.<\/p>\n
Mukherjee\u2019s first novel, \u00bbPast Continuous\u00ab, was published in India in 2008. The novel\u2019s protagonist is a young man from Calcutta who travels to England to pursue his studies but leaves Oxford soon thereafter and becomes an illegal immigrant in London. To escape the loneliness and alienation he feels, he begins to write a story about a genteel lady who teaches English, music and Western manners in India at the beginning of the 20th century. In the course of the novel the narrative hives off; past and present converge. In Great Britain \u00bbPast Continuous\u00ab appeared in 2010 under the title \u00bbA Life Apart\u00ab and earned tremendous praise from critics, who described it as \u00bbwild\u00ab, \u00bbdizzying\u00ab and \u00bbheartbreaking\u00ab. In 2009, the book received the Vodafone-Crossword Book Award in India as well as the Writers\u2019 Guild of Great Britain Award for Best Novel in 2010. Mukherjee\u2019s second novel, \u00bbThe Lives of Others\u00ab (2014), made him an international sensation. Yet again, the setting is Calcutta. Using flashbacks and foreshadowing, Mukherjee tells the complex saga of an upper-middle-class dynasty beginning in the year 1967. At the center of this story is Supratik, the oldest representative of the generation of grandchildren. He breaks ties with his family and joins a Maoist guerrilla group in an effort to educate the lower classes about engaging in armed struggle. Supratik\u2019s move to the underground heralds the family\u2019s demise. In Germany, the novel is often referred to as the \u00bbIndian Buddenbrooks\u00ab, and Mukherjee has acknowledged that Thomas Mann\u2019s work was a great influence on this Bengali family panorama. Indeed, Mukherjee\u2019s prose owes much to a precise form of realism, and its elegance is highly captivating: however, at the same time, the author does not shy away from an almost unbearable portrayal of violence and torture. The \u00bbFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung\u00ab noted that the novel \u00bbsucks readers into a labyrinthine, microcosmic \u203atheatre of the world\u2039, transfixing them right up to the very last page\u00ab. In fact, anyone interested in reading Mukherjee\u2019s novel should make sure they have strong nerves before picking up the book. According to the \u00bbNeue Z\u00fcrcher Zeitung\u00ab the novel constitutes \u00bbthe portrait of a society in which prestige and social appearance alone are paramount; morals, on the other hand, do not count for anything at all\u00ab. Ultimately, Mukherjee is taking aim at the present, which he suggests is merely a dreadful repetition of the past. In 2014, \u00bbThe Lives of Others\u00ab was shortlisted for the prestigious Man Booker Prize and won the Encore Award for best second novel that same year.<\/p>\n
Neel Mukherjee lives in London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"template":"","jct-role":[1080],"jct-origin":[535,491],"jct-ilb-years":[610],"class_list":["post-40835","authors","type-authors","status-publish","hentry","jct-role-author","jct-origin-india","jct-origin-united-kingdom","jct-ilb-years-2016-en"],"yoast_head":"\n