Kunal Basu Biography and latest books by Kunal Basu

Kunal Basu is an English fiction writer who has written three novels - The Opium Clerk (2001), The Miniaturist (2003), and Racists (2006). His most recent work is a collection of short stories, The Japanese Wife (2008), the title story of which has been made into a film by the same name by Aparna Sen.
 

Basu was born in Calcutta to Communist and literary parents Sunil Kumar and Chabi Basu, he was brought up on books and enriching conversations at home. He attended South Point High School in Calcutta, and graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Jadavpur University followed by an MS at the Florida Institute of Engineering. He returned to the US again in 1982 to do a PhD at the University of Florida. By this time, he had switched course from Engineering to Management. He also worked for an advertising agency, dabbled in filmmaking, and taught at Jadavpur University for a brief period of 16 months. In 1982, he met and married Susmita. Their daughter, Aparajita, was born soon after.
 

Basu is one of the very few Indian writers who write historical fiction with such dexterity. Apart from his love of history, the influence of his favourite author - Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay is responsible for him working in this genre. Basu is the first writer to deal with the opium trade in Indian fiction. This part of British colonial history is often ignored nowadays in British history textbooks.
 

The Mughal court, made its first appearance in Indian-English fiction in The Miniaturist. Basu has always had a great fascination for Mughal history. That innate interest coupled with several trips to Agra and Fatehpur Sikri helped him recreate the 16th century setting.
 

This Muslim novel by Basu was followed by Racists, a book which did not have a single Indian character in it. It was the first Victorian novel to be written by a non-white and was nominated for the Crossword Book Award.