Makarand R. Paranjape (born 31 August 1960) is an Indian novelist, poet, the Director at Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla and, since 1999, a Professor of English in the Centre for English Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

Early life and education

Makarand R. Paranjape was born in 1960 in

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ; Gujarati: Amdavad ) is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 (per t ...

, Gujarat. He was educated at the Bishop Cotton Boys' School in Bangalore followed by a B.A. (Hons.) in English at St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi, in 1980. Thereafter, he joined the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign from where he received his M.A. in English Literature and, subsequently, a PhD, in 1985, on the topic ''Mysticism in Indian English Poetry''.

Career

Makarand Paranjape had started his career in 1980 as a teaching assistant at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and returned to India in 1986 to join the University of Hyderabad, first as lecturer and then reader. In 1994, he joined the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Delhi as an associate professor, and between 1999–2018, he served as professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.Makarand Paranjape, short Biography
Université Interdisciplinaire de Paris, (UIP).

IIAS

Paranjape was appointed as Director of IIAS in August 2018. In August 2020, charges of irregularities filed against him by another office-bearer, leading to a spat with the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman at the institution."War Within: It's Right versus Right at Shimla's Esteemed IIAS"
''The Daily Guardian''. Utpal Kumar and Kunal Roy. 8 September 2020. Paranjape offered a rebuttal to his critics through an interview with ''The Wire'' in April 2021. However, it was later reported that he had violated the MoA (memorandum of association) of the institute as its Director and that it was not any clash with other specific individual heads at the institution.

Works and reception

In his coffee-table book of poems published in January 2022 as ''Identity's Last Secret'', Paranjape discussed how he "came out of a difficult relationship." In 2013, Makarand R. Paranjape published a novel called '' Body Offering''. The novel is a tale of a middle-aged man's extra-marital affair with a woman 25 years younger than him. The ''Sunday Guardian'' dubbed the book as one "that walked in the long shadow cast" by Russian-American writer Vladimir Nabakov's 1955 novel ''

Lolita ''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humber ...

''."Paranjape's Novel Is More Erratic than Erotic."
Aditya Mani Jha. ''The Sunday Guardian''. 10 August 2013.

Personal life

In 1987, Paranjape married Sarina, a graduate student at UIUC. In 2006, he married Devaki Singh, daughter of

Arun Singh Arun Singh may refer to: *Arun Singh (cricketer) (born 1975), Indian cricketer * Arun Singh (politician, born 1944), Indian politician and union minister of state for defence in the Government of India * Arun Singh (politician, born 1965), National ...

. They divorced in 2014. He is now married to Gayatri Iyer. No date provided to the current marriage in the source.

Honours

* ICCR Chair in Indian Studies, National University of Singapore, August 2010 onwards. * October–December 2014: Inaugural DAAD-Eric Auerbach Visiting Chair in World Literatures at the University of Tübingen, Germany.

Notes

References

External links

The Official Makarand Paranjape Webpage

Makarand Paranjape Webpage at JNU