Biography
of Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth is an Indian
poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and
memoirist.
Early Life
Vikram Seth was born to
Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta (now Kolkata). His family lived in many cities
including the Bata Shoe Company town of Batanagar, Danapur near Patna, and in
London.
His younger brother,
Shantum, leads Buddhist meditational tours. His younger sister, Aradhana, is a
film-maker married to an Austrian diplomat, and has worked on Deepa Mehta's
movies Earth and Fire. (Compare the characters Haresh, Lata, Savita and two of
the Chatterji siblings in A Suitable Boy: Seth has been candid in acknowledging
that many of his fictional characters are drawn from life; he has said that
only the dog Cuddles in A Suitable Boy has his real name — "Because he
can't sue". Justice Leila Seth has said in her memoir On Balance that
other characters in A Suitable Boy are composites but Haresh is a portrait of
her husband Prem.)
Seth spent part of his
youth in London but returned to his homeland in 1957. After receiving primary
and commencing secondary education at the Doon School in Dehradun in India,
Seth returned to England to Tonbridge School. From there, Seth studied
philosophy, politics, and economics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he
developed an interest in poetry and learned Chinese. After leaving Oxford, Seth
moved to California to work on a graduate degree in economics at Stanford
University.
Seth has published five
volumes of poetry. His first, Mappings (1980), was originally privately
published; it attracted little attention and indeed Philip Larkin, to whom he
sent it for comment, referred to it scornfully among his intimates, though he
offered Seth encouragement.
In 2009 Seth contributed
four poems to Oxfam which are used as introductions to each of the four
collections of UK stories which form Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' book project.
Some of his outstanding
poems are:
- A Style Of Loving
- Across
- All You Who Sleep Tonight
- At Evening
- Distressful Homonyms
- From California
- How Rarely These Few Years
- Interpretation
- Last Night
- Mistaken
- Night Watch
- Octet
- Prandial Plaint
- Progress Report
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