Suketu Mehta

Suketu Mehta Biography

Suketu Mehta is a famous Indian author best known for his masterpiece work, Maximum City. This New York based writer was born in India and was raised in Mumbai in his early years. Maximum City throws light on his life in Mumbai city. His incredible work, an autobiographical account published in 2004 was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2005. It won the 2005 Vodafone Crossword Book Award and was also shortlisted for the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize. The Economist named Maximum City as one of its books of the year for 2004. The book, based on two and a half years research is a mix of travel writing, a journal, a socio-political analysis of people and wonders of Mumbai.

Suketu Mehta was born in the year 1963 in Kolkata. He was born to Gujarati parents and raised in Mumbai, till the family shifted to New York city in 1977 when Suketu was a child. He studied at New York University and has attended the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 2004 he published his debut work, Maximum City which records some of his childhood experiences in Mumbai, and more about the city life at that period. The work regarded as one of the finest works among Indian authors in modern era. The book also got numerous international prizes and nominations and was a best seller.

Suketu published his second book - "In the Violent Favelas of Brazil” in 2013. He won the O. Henry Prize for his short story Gare du Nord published in Harper's Magazine in 1997. Whiting Award in 1997, 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship, Fellowship of the New York Foundation for the Arts etc are other major honours received by him. Maximum City also bagged Kiriyama Prize in 2005.

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Updated: May 28, 2018