The Autobiography Of An Unknown Indian By Nirad C Chaudhuri

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1951.

The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian is an astonishing work of self-discovery and the revelation of a peerless and provocative sensibility. Describing his childhood in the Bengali countryside and his youth in Calcutta—and telling the story of modern India from his own fiercely independent viewpoint—Chaudhuri fashions a book of deep conviction, charm, and intimacy that is also a masterpiece of the writer's art.

The Continent of Circe is the result of the author s life-time effort to understand the nature of things. It describes the human situation in India after Independence. The author resorts to the historical method, and surprisingly encounters not staticity, but a continuing dynamic and even explosive process within which history and geography have worked to create dissimilar communities and endless conflicts. The highlight of this book is undoubtedly the author s imaginative interpretation of the Hindu personality based on original sources. Chaudhuri s language is forceful and expressive, and his arguments are well defined and lucid. The book is the author s most compelling and authoritative work a landmark in Indian history.

Chaudhuri's extravagant and discerning collection unfurls the full diversity of Indian writing from the 1850s to the present in English, and in elegant new translations from Bengali, Hindi, and Urdu. Among the 38 authors represented are contemporary superstars such as Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, and Pankaj Mishra.

Nirad Chaudhari, Who Died On 1 August 1999, At The Age Of 101, Was One Of The Greatest Thinkers Of The 20Th Century. He Wrote Ten Books Including The Famous Work The Auto-Biography Of An Unknown Indian. The Book Is A Fitting Tribute To His Genius.