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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. Chatterjee, who became a civil servant in 1983, provides key insight into the disparity between rural and urban lived
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Agastya, a city boy, initially struggles with the culture shock of being posted to the provincial town of Madna. However, his time there develops into a long philosophical journey and a process of self discovery.
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was first published in a time when the Indian novel in
English was the subject of knock-down-drag-out fights over which language really represented (for a given value of “really” and “represented”) India."
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writes,"Upamanyu
Chatterjee himself served in the Indian Administrative Service, and clearly knows both its ways and the disconnect felt between young Indians and their past."
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Agastya Sen's sense of dislocation is only compounded by his extreme lack of interest in the bizarre ways of government and administration, while his mind is dominated by the
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and images from his previous urban life. His work in Madna would ideally require him to be a devoted servant of the people.
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describes the novel as "a comic, entertaining portrayal of an administrator's life in the sticks." Akash Kapur writes in
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experiences witnessed in his generation. The key character, Agastya Sen, can also be seen in the sequel of this novel
167:"Agastya Sen is a young Indian civil servant whose imagination is dominated by women, literature, and soft drugs."
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is a marvelously intelligent and entertaining novel, and especially for anyone curious about modern India."
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writes, "Excellent stuff. Let's have
Chatterjee's other novels, please." Michael Dirda of
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In 2018, on the occasion of the 30-year anniversary reprinting, Supriya Nair writes for
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306:"English, August by Upamanyu Chatterjee: 9781590171790 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books"
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This article is about the novel. For the film adaptation, see
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336:(Back Cover). London: faber and faber.
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447:"English, August: An Indian Story"
155:The Mammaries of the Welfare State
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502:Nair, Supriya (August 25, 2018).
418:Dirda, Michael (April 23, 2006).
567:Indian novels adapted into films
334:ENGLISH, AUGUST: An Indian Story
140:English, August: An Indian Story
359:"Up in Smoke (Published 2006)"
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474:Kapur, Akash (July 2, 2006).
288:"Upamanyu Chatterjee, 1959–"
143:is a novel by Indian author
357:Kapur, Akash (2006-07-02).
16:Book by Upamanyu Chatterjee
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294:. US Library of Congress.
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577:Faber & Faber books
149:a film of the same name
587:Bureaucracy in fiction
310:PenguinRandomhouse.com
265:, 1994 film adaptation
21:English, August (film)
562:Philosophical novels
330:Chatterjee, Upamanyu
572:Novels set in India
425:The Washington Post
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145:Upamanyu Chatterjee
48:Upamanyu Chatterjee
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582:1988 Indian novels
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189:Critical reception
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420:"ENGLISH, AUGUST"
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77:January 1988
178:Meditations
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270:References
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509:Scroll.in
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332:(1989).
255:See also
54:Language
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57:English
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93:296 pp
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231:Punch
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
