SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Jeet Thayil born in 1959 is a Keralite and contemporary poet and novelist writing in English. His father Padma Bhushan T J S George is a known figure in India and abroad as a media person and writer. Jeet's intellectual formation took place in educational institutions like the Island School as well as institutions in Hong Kong and the Wilson College in Mumbai. The influence, in his life, of the premiere institutions like
Sarah Lawrence College (New York) from where he mastered in Fine Arts, the
New York Foundation for the Arts which provided him with grants and awards cannot be disputed. Equally decisive must be the the role of the the Swiss Arts Council, the British Council and the
Rockefeller Foundation in shaping a novelist and poet of the Man Booker calibre. His partnership with the poet Vijay Nambisan resulted in
Gemini-2 (1992).
Apocalypso (1997),
English (2004) and
These Errors Are Correct (2008) later works.
Vijay Seshadri, a poet himself, highlights the command of the poetic and historical past,
depth of his language, archaeological
richness, and reality. Jeet has edited two volumes of short stories, Vox: New Indian Fiction (1996) and Vox 2: Seven Stories (1997). His writings as a journalist appeared in Asiaweek, the South China Morning Post, and India Abroad. He was associated as the literary editor with the Mumbai magazine Gentleman for three years from 1995. Six years ago, Jeet edited the book Divided Time: India and the End of Diaspora
for Routledge which has been a noted collection. Thayil has as editor a collection of 56
Indian Poets for Fulcrum press (2005) besides another anthology of contemporary Indian Poets for Bloodaxe (2008) too to his credit.
Jeet Thayil is multifaceted creative person. He is a performer poet and guitarist who is also the founding member of the Chronic Blues Band, a Bangalore-based
fusion band. It is no wonder that the he is on the Montreal International Poetry Prize Board also (
http://montrealprize.com/about-us/advisory-board/).
His novel Narcopolis, a Faber & Faber publication is now long listed for Man Booker. The department of English and the English Club of Payyanur College, Kannur, Kerala salute JEET THAYIL for this glory and share the happiness.
Man Booker longlist - 2012:
Nicola Barker, The Yips
(Fourth Estate)
Ned Beauman, The Teleportation
Accident (Sceptre)
André Brink, Philida (Harvill
Secker)
Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of
Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books)
Michael Frayn, Skios (Faber
& Faber)
Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely
Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Doubleday)
Deborah Levy, Swimming Home (And
Other Stories)
Hilary Mantel, Bring up the
Bodies (Fourth Estate)
Alison Moore, The Lighthouse
(Salt)
Will Self, Umbrella
(Bloomsbury)
Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis
(Faber & Faber)
Sam Thompson, Communion Town
(Fourth Estate)
BOOKER WINNERS WITH SHORT LIST 2000 - 2011
Bibliography
FICTION
EDITED
- The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets, Bloodaxe, U.K, 2008
- Vox2: Seven Stories, Sterling Newspapers, India, 1997
- Give the Sea Change and It Shall Change: 56 Indian Poets, Fulcrum, 2005
- Divided Time: India and the End of Diaspora, Routledge, 2006
- 60 Indian Poets, Penguin India, 2008.
POETRY COLLECTIONS
- Gemini, Penguin-Viking, New Delhi, 1992. (two-poet volume ), 0-670-84524-8
- Apocalypso , Aark Arts, London, 1997, ISBN 1-899179-01-1
- English, Penguin, Delhi and Rattapallax Press, New York, 2004. ISBN 1-892494-59-0
- These Errors Are Correct, Tranquebar Books (EastWest and Westland), Delhi, 2008
CURIOSITY MAY KILL THE CAT BUT NOT YOU:
http://www.saltpublishing.com/saltmagazine/issues/01/text/Thayil_Jeet.htm
http://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/archives/program-2011/speakers-2012/#z
http://www.doolnews.com/malayalee-jeeth-thayyil-novel-in-bookker-prize-list-malayalam-news-554.html
http://www.e-anglais.com/lectures/Booker_Prize.html
Two documentaries, Shit and Radiation Story (Kalpakkam) by the noted Tamil social activist and documentary maker Amudhan R P were screened at Payyanur college in a function arranged by the department of English. In the vigorous interaction that followed each screening students came up with an ideological recognition of the dalit and environmental and nuclear issues in the Indian context. Students who took part in the discussion are: 