Kunal Basu
Kunal Basu was born in Calcutta but has spent much of his adult life in Canada and the USA.
He has taught at the McGill university and been a Professor of Marketing at Templeton College, Oxford University, England. He has also acted on film in India, and written a screenplay Snakecharmer, as well as written and directed two documentaries.
Though Kunal Basu is based abroad, he does not believe in writing about alienation and the search for one’s roots like other expatriate Indian writers. He prefers the strange to the familiar, and so all his novels so far have a historical setting.
His first novel The Opium Clerk traces the opium trade in the 19th century. The Miniaturist is set in the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Racists is set in the Victorian era, and could very well be the first Victorian novel written by a non-Saxon.
Works
- The Opium Clerk {2001}
- The Miniaturist {2003}
- Racists {2006}
- The Japanese Wife {2008}