Friend of My Youth A discussion celebrating the launch of Amit Chaudhuri’s new book

Amit Chaudhuri is the acclaimed author of seven novels, including Odysseus Abroad and A Strange and Sublime Address, and two books of essays. He has been awarded the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Betty Trask Award, the L.A. Times Book Prize and the Sahitya Akademi Award. He is a judge of the Man Booker International Prize

Anil Dharker has been an engineer, an architectural consultant, a film critic, a promoter of New Cinema and an editor, successively, of Mid-Day and Sunday Mid-Day, The Independent, and The Illustrated Weekly of India. He has become one of India’s best known columnists, his columns having appeared in major publications like The Times of India, The Economic Times, The Hindu, DNA, Business World, The Financial Chronicle, Khaleej Times and Gulf News. He has also written for international publications like The Independent, The Scotsman, The Glasgow Herald and Foreign Affairs. He is the Founder and Director of the Mumbai International Literary Festival, now in its eighth year. Anil has worked in television as producer and anchor and was also Creative Director of the Zee Television network. He has authored a coffee-table book on Goa, a biography of industrialist OP Jindal (The Man Who Talked To Machines), a collection of essays on television (Sorry, Not Ready), a book on Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi March (The Romance Of Salt) and edited an anthology (Icons: Men & Women Who Shaped Today’s India). Anil is on the Advisory Committee of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and has been on the Advisory Committees of Doordarshan and the Children’s Film Society. He has received several journalism awards and has been on the jury of various awards including HSBC’s award for the Indian of the Year. He is the President of Citizens for Justice and Peace, and was till recently, the Hon. Consul General for Luxembourg for Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa.