The redoubtable writer Nirad C. Chaudhuri turned 100 on this day. His long life was as full of difficulties as rewards. Chaudhuri would live for almost two more years.
He was described as “one of the most remarkable products of the encounter between India and European culture”. His book The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian placed him among the most eminent Indian writers. He was controversial because to some this was the work of a “British imperialist”, but Chaudhuri could be as critical as he was admiring of British culture, as he was of Indian and Bengali culture. He was the odd man everywhere.
He had worked for All India Radio. In his 70s, Chaudhuri left India to settle in Oxford in England. But the England of reality did not match the country of his imagination. He wrote about this in Thy Hand, Great Anarch.
It talks about the decline of both his adoptive country and homeland. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1990 and an honorary CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1992. He wrote in Bengali and English.
