Authors from India and of Indian Origin Quiz

Answer: The Satanic Verses

Salman Rushdie rose to fame with his second novel 'Midnight's Children'. It won the Booker Prize in 1981 and also won the Booker of Bookers Prize in 1993 for the best novel to win the award in the first 25 years. The fatwa was pronounced for his irreverent depiction of Prophet Muhammad in 'Satanic Verses' forcing him to live in hiding for several years.

It still hasn't been officially revoked.

Answer: True

She was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004 for her social work and advocacy of non-violence. She also won the Lannan Foundation's Cultural Freedom award in 2002. In 2002, she was sentenced to a symbolic one day imprisonment and fined by the Supreme
Court of India for contempt of court after she accused the court of trying to silence the protests against the Narmada Dam Project.

Answer: Rohinton Mistry

Rohinton Mistry was born in Mumbai, India in 1952 and emigrated to Canada in 1975. He has been short-listed for the Booker Prize for Fiction thrice though he is yet to win it as of 2007. In November 2001, his second novel 'A Fine Balance' was selected for Oprah's Book Club.

Answer: The Namesake

'The Namesake' is directed by Mira Nair and Jhumpa features in the film as an extra. Jhumpa's parents made it a point to teach her about their Bengali heritage from a very young age. Most of her short stories address issues faced by Indians or Indian immigrants.

Answer: The Argumentative Indian

His most famous work 'The Great Indian Novel' (1989) was written in the style of the Indian epic, the Mahabharata. The film 'Bollywood' was adapted from his 1992 novel 'Show Business'.
'The Argumentative Indian' was written by Amartya Sen, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1998.

Answer: Anita & Kiran Desai

Anita Desai was short-listed for the Booker Prize for Fiction thrice for her novels 'Clear Light of Day' (1980), 'In Custody' (1984) and 'Fasting, Feasting' (1999). 'In Custody' was made into a movie by Merchant Ivory Productions and won the President of India Gold Medal for Best Picture in 1994.
Kiran Desai's first novel 'Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard' (1998) was praised by noted author Salman Rushdie among others, but it was her second novel 'The Inheritance of Loss' (2006) which won her the Booker.

Answer: Malgudi

Malgudi is said to be a small town in South India, a few kilometers away from Chennai. It forms the setting for most of his short stories and 14 of his novels beginning with his first 'Swami and Friends'.
R. K. Narayan's works are translated in all the European languages and Hebrew. Graham Greene called him 'the novelist I admire most in the English language'.

Answer: Yes

V. S. Naipual was the first person of Indian origin to win the Booker Prize in 1971 with his novel 'In A Free State'. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990. Naipaul has often been criticized for his negative portrayal of the Third World including India.

Answer: Amitav Ghosh

Amitav Ghosh has won India's most prestigious literary award, the Sahitya Akademi Award for 'The Shadow Lines' (1990). Born in Calcutta in 1956, he studied at the Doon School and St. Stephen's College before receiving his Ph.D. in social anthropology from Oxford University.

Answer: True

Sake Dean Mahomet, a Bengali Muslim, immigrated to Cork, Ireland in 1786. He published his first book 'The Travels of Dean Mahomet' in 1794 which describes important cities in India and a series of military conflicts between local Indian rulers. This book is thought to be the first to be written by a native Indian in English.