Arun Joshi

Arun Joshi Biography

Arun Joshi was an Indian writer who lived during the period, 1939-1993. Most of his works were written in English language. His novel The Last Labyrinth won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for the year 1982. His novels contain contemporary, English speaking urban characters in plenty, but with issues and disturbances. He published a total of 5 novels - The Foreigner, The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, The Apprentice, The Last Labyrinth and The City and the River. The Survivor and Other Stories, The Only American From Our Village and The Homecoming are his short story collections, while Shri Ram: A Biography and Laia Shri Ram: A Study in Entrepreneurship and Industrial Management are other noted works.

Arun Joshi was born in 1939 in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh in British India. He belonged to a family of scholars. For advanced studies he moved to US, where he took B.S. degree from Kansas University and an M.S. degree from M.I.T. Once returned to India, he started his professional career, working with North India's first textile factory - Delhi Cloth & General Mills. He was hired as the chief of its recruitment and training department. He later married the daughter of one of the shareholders of the company. He resigned from the organization in 1965.

Throughout his lifetime, he never enjoyed public or social life, and always kept a low profile life. He published his works locally by Orient Paperbacks, even while many multinational publishing houses established their branches in India. His first work was published in 1968 - The Foreigner. Throughout 1970s he regularly published books belonging to different genres of literature. He passed away in 1993.

Published: September 19, 2018

Updated: September 19, 2018