An evening to celebrate 30 years of ‘English, August’

DELHI’S ICONIC OXFORD Bookstore in collaboration with renowned author and festival director Namita Gokhale organized an evening for the launch of ‘The Revenge of the Non-vegetarian’ and to celebrate the 30th anniversary edition of the classic ‘English, August’ by an renowned author, Upamanyu Chatterjee. An interesting talk session between Upamanyu Chatterjee and Editor-in-chief, VICE India, Pragya Tewari was curated to discuss the idea around the book followed by wine and cheese, hosted by The Park, New Delhi.

Upamanyu Chatterjee’s novel ‘The Revenge of the Non-vegetarian’ is set between 1949 and 1973 in a town called Batia in the state Narmada Pradesh. Batia is home to the 1,000-yearold Dayasagar Adinath Temple while the Batia sub-division is just 70 years old. With the town being predominantly Hindu, and the temple precincts being sacred, meat-eating is frowned upon in Batia. Eating contentious food like beef, therefore, is quite unthinkable.

English, August however is an Indian Story by Upamanyu Chatterjee, which was written in English, first published in 1988 and has since been reprinted several times. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 1994.

The novel portrays the struggle of a civil servant who is posted in a rural area and is considered to be a very authentic portrayal of the state of Indian youth in the 1980s.

The author of the book Upamanyu Chatterjee is an Indian Administrative Service officer, currently serving the Indian government as Joint Secretary on the Petrol and Natural Gas Regulatory Board.

In 2004, Chatterjee was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award and conferred with Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2009 in recognition of his exemplary contribution to contemporary literature.