Rana Dasgupta

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British Indian novelist and essayist (born 1971)

Rana Dasgupta

Dasgupta at home in Delhi, April 2010

Born| Rana Dasgupta
(1971-11-05) 5 November 1971 (age 53)
Canterbury, England
Occupation| Novelist, essayist
Notable works| Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First Century Delhi (2014)
Notable awards| Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (2010); Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize (2019); Windham–Campbell Literature Prize (2025)
Website
www.ranadasgupta.com

Rana Dasgupta (born 5 November 1971 in Canterbury, England) is a British novelist and essayist. He grew up in Cambridge, England, and studied at Balliol College, Oxford, the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud in Aix-en-Provence, and, as a Fulbright Scholar, the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 2010, The Daily Telegraph called him one of Britain's best novelists under 40.[1] In 2014, Le Monde named him one of 70 people who are making the world of tomorrow.[2] Among the prizes won by Dasgupta's works are the Commonwealth Prize and the Ryszard Kapuściński Award.

Dasgupta is a former literary director of the JCB Prize for Literature.[3]

## Career

[edit]

Dasgupta's first novel, Tokyo Cancelled (HarperCollins, 2005), was an examination of the forces and experiences of globalisation. Billed as a modern-day Canterbury Tales, it is about thirteen passengers stuck overnight in an airport who tell thirteen stories from different cities in the world, stories that resemble contemporary fairy tales, mythic and surreal. The tales add up to a broad exploration of 21st-century forms of life, which includes billionaires, film stars, migrant labourers, illegal immigrants and sailors.[4] Tokyo Cancelled was shortlisted for the 2005 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize.[citation needed]

Dasgupta's second novel, Solo (HarperCollins, 2009), was an epic tale of the 20th and 21st centuries told from the perspective of a 100-year-old Bulgarian man. Having achieved little in his 20th-century life, he settles into a long and prophetic daydream of the 21st century, where all the ideological experiments of the old century are over, and a collection of startling characters – demons and angels – live a life beyond utopia. A reviewer described it as "unfazed by the 21st century, confidently tracing the wrong turnings of the past 100 years, soaring insightfully over the mess of global developments that constitute the quagmire of today".[5] Solo was translated into 20 languages.[citation needed]

Dasgupta was awarded the prestigious Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the novel Solo; it won both the region and overall best-book prize.[6]

His third book, Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First-Century Delhi (Canongate, 2014), is a non-fiction exploration of his adopted city of Delhi and, in particular, the changes and personalities brought about there by globalization. Capital won the Ryszard Kapuściński Award and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Ondaatje Prize.[citation needed]

Dasgupta is currently[when?] working on a book about a proposed crisis of the nation-state system. In March 2017, he co-curated a major conference and exhibition with the title Now is the time of monsters: what comes after nations? at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, Germany.[7]

He was the founding literary director of the JCB Prize for Literature, initiated in 2018 by JCB, to be awarded annually with 2,500,000 Indian rupees (US$38,400) prize money, to a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer.[citation needed]

Dasgupta was awarded the prestigious Rabindranath Tagore Literary Award 2019 for his novel Solo.[citation needed]

## Academic appointments

[edit]

In October 2012, Dasgupta was Whitney J. Oates Visiting Fellow in the Humanities at Princeton University.[citation needed]

Since 2014, he has taught each spring at Brown University where he is Distinguished Visiting Lecturer and Writer-in-Residence in the Department of Modern Culture and Media.[citation needed]

## Awards

[edit]

* 2010: Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book for his novel Solo[8]
* 2017: Émile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature for Capital[citation needed]
* 2017: Ryszard Kapuściński Award for Capital[citation needed]
* 2019: Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize for Solo[9]
* 2025: Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Capital[10]

## Bibliography

[edit]

### Fiction

[edit]

* Tokyo Cancelled (2005)
* Solo (2009)

### Non-fiction

[edit]

* Capital: A Portrait of Twenty-First Century Delhi (2014)[11]

### Essays

[edit]

* "Maximum Cities" (New Statesman, 27 March 2006)
* "Capital Gains" (Granta 107, Summer 2009)
* "Writing into the unknown" (Nagledna+, 2013)[12]
* "Notes on a Suicide" (Granta 140, Summer 2017)[13]
* "The Demise of the Nation State" (The Guardian, 5 April 2018)[14]
* "The Silenced Majority: Can America Still Afford Democracy?" (Harper's Magazine 341, no. 2,047, December 2020, pp. 47–56)

### Further reading

[edit]

* Mendes, AC, Lau, L. (2018) "The conjunctural spaces of 'new India': Imagined geographies of 2010s India in representations by returnee migrants", Cultural Geographies, 1–16. DOI: 10.1177/1474474018786033.
* Mendes, AC. (2018) "The eruption and ruination of 1rising India1: Rana Dasgupta’s Capital and the temporalities of Delhi in the 2010s", Modern Asian Studies, 1–25. DOI: 10.1017/S0026749X17000464.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Bradbury, Lorna (18 June 2010). "Are these Britain's 20 best novelists under 40?". The Daily Telegraph.
2. ^ "Le Monde de demain, parlons-en aujourd'hui" [The world of tomorrow, let's talk about it today]. Le Monde (in French). 12 June 2014.
3. ^ Ghoshal, Somak (14 February 2020). "'I want to take the JCB Prize to the smaller towns and cities': Mita Kapur". Mint Lounge. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
4. ^ Dasgupta, Rana (2005). Tokyo Cancelled. London and New York: Fourth Estate/HarperCollins and Black Cat/Grove Atlantic. ISBN 0-8021-7009-9.
\- Crown, Sarah (29 March 2005). "Narrative Planes". The Guardian.
5. ^ Krauth, Nigel (31 January 2009). "Addictive puzzle of life's meaning". The Australian.
6. ^ "Rana Dasgupta's 'risky' book takes writers' prize". BBC News. 12 April 2010.
7. ^ "Now Is The Time of Monsters | What Comes After Nations?". Haus der Kulturen der Welt. March 2017.
8. ^ Lea, Richard (12 April 2010). "Rana Dasgupta wins Commonwealth Writers' prize". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
9. ^ "Rana Dasgupta bags 2019 Tagore Literary Prize". Business Standard India. Indo-Asian News Service. 24 April 2019. Retrieved 30 November 2020.
10. ^ "Writer Rana Dasgupta wins $175,000 Windham-Campbell Prize". Scroll.in. 25 March 2025. Retrieved 26 March 2025.
11. ^ "Prix Émile Guimet de littérature asiatique 2017" (in French). Musée nationale dea arts asiatiques-Guimet. 2018.
12. ^ "Writing into the unknown". Nagledna+. Summer 2013.[permanent dead link]
13. ^ "Notes on a Suicide". Granta (140). Summer 2017.
14. ^ Dasgupta, Rana (5 April 2018). "The Demise of the Nation State". The Guardian.

## External links

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* New Statesman article by Rana Dasgupta on the rise of the Third-World city
* Granta essay by Rana Dasgupta about Delhi's new rich
* "Rana Dasgupta", Writers Online, Brown University

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