EVANSTON: Renowned Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh is visiting Northwestern University for two weeks from April 14 to teach undergraduate and graduate/faculty seminars and to give two public lectures on writing about polyglot societies and traveling the opium route in Asia.
The visit is sponsored by the Center for Global Culture and Communication and the Sinha Kikeri Foundation in association with the Art Institute of Chicago and various departments and schools at Northwestern.
They include The Graduate School, the Department of Communication Studies, The Center for the Writing Arts, The Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, Departments of English and of Asian Languages and Cultures, the Asian Studies Program and the Roberta Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies.
The Ghosh visit has been made possible through a significant amount in donations from the Chicago area Indian immigrant community which is numerically large, highly educated and increasingly influential. The visit will be an opportunity to increase ties and cultural cooperation between the Indian community in Chicago and Northwestern University as well as the Art Institute of Chicago.
Internationally celebrated, award-winning Ghosh has written seven novels and two volumes of non-fiction. His works have been translated into more than 20 languages. He is perhaps best known for the first two volumes of his work, the Ibis trilogy: “Sea of Poppies” and “River of Smoke.” The first of these volumes was nominated for the prestigious Man Booker Prize in 2008.
“This is an extraordinary opportunity for Northwestern and for the Indian and South Asian community in Chicago and others,” said Dilip Gaonkar, professor of communication at the School of Communication and director of the Center for Global Culture and Communication at Northwestern.
“Amitav Ghosh is a world-renowned author, lecturer and teacher, and he is truly a poster child for transnational knowledge,” Gaonkar added.
India Post News Service
