Neel Mukherjee,

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the ...

(born 1970) is an Indian

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

-language novelist based in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and the US. His first novel, ''

Past Continuous ''Past Continuous'' is a 1977 novel originally written in Hebrew by Israeli novelist Yaakov Shabtai. The original title, Zikhron Devarim () is a form of contract or letter of agreement or memorandum, but could also be translated literally as ''Re ...

'', won the Vodafone-Crossword Book Award in 2008. Under its UK title, ''A Life Apart'', it won the

Writers' Guild of Great Britain The Writers' Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), established in 1959, is a trade union for professional writers. It is affiliated with both the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG). History The u ...

award for best fiction in 2010. His second novel, ''

The Lives of Others ''The Lives of Others'' (, ) is a 2006 German drama film written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck marking his feature film directorial debut. The plot is about the monitoring of East Berlin residents by agents of the Stasi, Ea ...

'', was shortlisted for the

2014 Man Booker Prize The 2014 Man Booker Prize for fiction was awarded at a ceremony on 14 October 2014. Until 2014, only novels written in English and from authors in the Commonwealth, including the UK, the Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe were eligible for considerat ...

and won the

Encore Award The £15,000 Encore Award for the best second novel was first awarded in 1990. It is sponsored by Lucy Astor, presented by the Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King Ge ...

. He has also been shortlisted for the

DSC Prize for South Asian Literature The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature is an international literary prize awarded annually to writers of any ethnicity or nationality writing about South AsiaNote: South Asia for the purposes of the prize is defined as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka ...

and the

Goldsmiths Prize The Goldsmiths Prize is a British literary award, founded in 2013 by Goldsmiths, University of London, in association with the ''New Statesman.'' It is awarded annually to a British or Irish piece of fiction that "breaks the mould or extends the ...

. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the ...

in 2018.

Life

Mukherjee was born in India in 1970. He was educated at Don Bosco School, Park Circus,

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

. He studied English at

Jadavpur University Jadavpur University ( abbr. JU) is a public state funded research university with its main campus located at Jadavpur, Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It was established on 25 July in 1906 as ''Bengal Technical Institute'' and was converted into ...

and then attended

University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...

, on a

Rhodes Scholarship The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom. The scholarship is open to people from all backgrounds around the world. Established in 1902, it is ...

, where he took a second BA in English, graduating in 1992. He completed a PhD on

Edmund Spenser Edmund Spenser (; – 13 January 1599 Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) was an English poet best known for ''The Faerie Queene'', an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the House of Tudor, Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is re ...

and the complaint form at

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from ...

and went on to take a master's in creative writing at the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...

. He has reviewed fiction for publications including

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

, the ''Sunday Telegraph'', and

Time Asia ''Time'' (stylized in all caps as ''TIME'') is an American news magazine based in New York City. It was published weekly for nearly a century. Starting in March 2020, it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York Ci ...

and has written articles for publications including the

Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

, and the

Boston Review ''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...

. He divides his time between London and the US, where he teaches at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. Mukherjee is the brother of the television anchor and editor

Udayan Mukherjee Udayan Mukherjee is an Indian television journalist and economist who was formerly the managing editor with CNBC India. He is 52 years old and moved to Kumaon in 2013. He lives in Seetla, Uttarakhand. Udayan is an economist by training having ...

Books

''A Life Apart'' (India: ''Past Continuous'')

Mukherjee started writing his debut novel while studying writing at the University of East Anglia. It was published in India by Picador in January 2008 as ''Past Continuous''. It was published in the UK by Constable in January 2010 as ''A Life Apart''. It tells the story of Ritwik, a young gay man who moves from an unhappy childhood in India to a scholarship at Oxford University. As his visa expires, he moves to London where he lives on the edges of society, working as a carer and moonlighting as a prostitute. Ritwik's narrative is interspersed with chapters from a novel he is writing, in which a minor character from a

Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

novel visits

Bengal Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...

in the early 1900s. As ''Past Continuous'', the novel won the 2008

Vodafone Crossword Book Award The Crossword Book Award (formerly known as the Crossword Book Award (1998–2003), the Hutch Crossword Book Award (2004–07), the Vodafone Crossword Book Award (2008–10), the Economist Crossword Book Award (2011–13), Raymond & Crossword Bo ...

for English Fiction in 2008, while Mukherjee won the ''GQ'' (India) Writer of the Year Award in 2009. As ''A Life Apart'', the novel was shortlisted for the 2011

and won the

award for best fiction.

''The Lives of Others''

Mukherjee's second novel, ''The Lives of Others'', published in 2014, is set in Kolkata in the late 1960s. Centering on the mill-owning Ghosh family, it continues Mukherjee's interest in inequality and those on the edge of society. It interweaves letters from eldest grandson Supratik, who has become involved in extremist political activism, with a detailed account of events in the household he has left behind, the turbulence of the family's lives mirroring that of society. The novel won the 2014

from the Royal Society of Literature for the best second novel. It was shortlisted for the

. It was also shortlisted for the 2016

''A State of Freedom''

Mukherjee's third novel, ''A State of Freedom'', was published in 2017. The prologue was published in ''

Granta ''Granta'' is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story's supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make ...

'' 130. The novel is set in India and interweaves the stories of five characters displaced by choice or circumstance, including a father on a visit home from the US, a construction worker, and a servant. Writing in

Andrew Motion Sir Andrew Peter Motion (born 26 October 1952) is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and a ...

compared the novel's themes to those of British Victorian writers such as Dickens, founded "in the denunciation of injustice, and the valuing of compassion".

''Choice''

Published in 2024, ''Choice'' is structured as a triptych, with three thematically linked sections examining how personal decisions are influenced by broader economic and social forces. The first section follows Ayush, a London-based publisher, who becomes increasingly disillusioned with the capitalist structures that shape his life. The other sections pick up on small details in Ayush's narrative to tell the story of an academic who befriends an Eritrean Uber driver and of a family that falls apart after the gift of a cow. ''Choice'' was shortlisted for the

in 2024.

References

External links

*
Profile
at the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lang ...

Neel Mukherjee
at

Penguin India Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a smal ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mukherjee, Neel 1970 births Living people 21st-century Indian male writers 21st-century Indian novelists Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of East Anglia Alumni of University College, Oxford Bengali Hindus Don Bosco schools alumni English-language writers from India Indian male novelists Indian Rhodes Scholars Jadavpur University alumni Novelists from West Bengal Writers from Kolkata Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature