Kunal Basu

Kunal Basu Biography

Kunal Basu is an Indian author of English fiction and he has authored 4 novels till now. The Opium Clerk (2001), The Miniaturist (2003), Racists (2006) and The Yellow Emperor's Cure (2011) are his published novels and he has also authored a collection of short stories titled, The Japanese Wife (2008) which has been made an Indian feature film by Aparna Sen. He is one of the very few Indian practitioners of historical fiction.

Kunal Basu was born in Kolkata to Sunil Kumar Basu and Chabu Basu. His father was one of the early members of the Communist Party of India and his mother, a writer and actress. Raised by unoxthodox parents, he developed an early love for the arts - painting, acting and writing. After education, he has took up journalism as his career and has also worked for an ad agency. Then he dabbled in filmmaking, and taught at Jadavpur University for a brief period. In 1982, he got married to Susmita and the couple has one daughter. After his doctoral degree, he was a professor at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, from 1986–1999. In between he had a brief stint at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, in 1989. Since 1999, he is a faculty at Oxford University's Said Business School. Occasionally he writes columns in business publications such as Fast Company and MIT Sloan Management Review.  

Apart from his love to history, he has been deeply influenced by Bengali novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Walter Scott. He also loves to read books of Ramesh Chandra Dutta and Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay. He is drawn towards "romantic possibilities of any historical novel". Basu is the first writer to deal with the opium trade in Indian fiction.

Published: N/A

Updated: January 21, 2014