Chatterjee, Upamanyu (1959-…), is an Indian novelist who is famous for the satirical nature of his books. He writes about the relevance of old institutions—such as government and family—to modern Indian society and culture. He deals mainly with the situation of Westernized Indians.
English, August: An Indian Story (1988) is the satirical story of a young Indian civil servant who begins to question the usefulness of the bureaucracy in which he works. His disgust with the institution he has joined is accompanied by a personal search for a way to make life bearable. Chatterjee wrote a sequel in the satirical novel The Mammaries of the Welfare State (2000). His novel The Last Burden (1993) is a more complicated work that follows the lives of the members of a family after the mother suffers a heart attack. The novel Weight Loss (2006) is a dark comedy about a young man frantically seeking sexual adventures. Way to Go (2010) is a sequel to The Last Burden.
Chatterjee was born to Bengali parents in Bihar, India. He was educated at St. Stephen’s College, in Delhi. He became an officer of the Indian Administrative Service, and in 1983, became head of the Bombay (now Mumbai) Slum Improvement Board. His experiences in the Indian government bureaucracy inspired much of his satirical fiction.
