Amitav Ghosh to address literary fest in UK

Leading Indian author Amitav Ghosh will address the University of Leicester's annual literary festival next week for the first time.
The 57-year-old multi-award-winning Bengali Indian novelist Ghosh will be speaking at the University of Leicester on November 12 where he would join a panel of expert historians and literature specialists for a discussion on 'History and Fiction'.
The New York-based author will take to the stage a second time for the opening night of the Literary Leicester festival on November 13, the varsity said in a statement today.
"We are honoured that Amitav Ghosh is flying from the other side of the world to visit Leicester for the first time. He is widely considered as one of the world's most innovative novelists. Given the vibrancy of Leicester's literary scene and Leicester's UK City of Culture bid, Mr Ghosh's visit is perfectly timed," said Corinne Fowler, who is helping to organise the events.

Ghosh's novels are renowned internationally for their compelling story-telling that brings the history of the Indian Ocean area alive through the use of deeply researched detail. His ongoing 'Ibis' trilogy, for instance, set in the 1830s, vividly encapsulates the colonial history of the region at the time, the statement said.
He has won numerous awards since his first novel, The Circle of Reason, won France's Prix Medicis in 1990, and The Shadow Lines received two prestigious Indian prizes the same year.
More recently, his novel Sea of Poppies was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2008. He has won the Arthur C Clarke Award, the Crossword Book Prize and the India Plaza Golden Quill Award in 2009.

Kolkata-born Ghosh has taught at Harvard and Columbia universities and been Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at the City University of New York.