This poet, novelist, librettist and musician is best known for the poetry collections titled These Errors Are Correct, English, Apocalypso and Gemini. His first novel, Narcopolis, won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature and was shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize and The Hindu Literary Prize.
Early life
Born on October 13, 1959 in the Ernakulam district of Kerala, Thayil is the son of the critically acclaimed journalist and biographer TJS George.
Educated in Hong Kong, New York and Bombay, he obtained Master’s in Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College, New York.
Career
Thayil worked as a journalist for 23 years in Bombay, Bangalore, Hong Kong and New York. From time to time, he brought out collections of his verses, whch included Gemini II: Selected Poems (1994), Apocalypso (1997), English (2004), These Errors are Correct (2008) and Anthology of Contemporary Indian Poetry (2015).
For over two decades, while Thayil led a normal life, a strong affinity with literature and those who practised the craft stirred deep within him, as did a strong, though latent desire to become a writer. It was only in 2002, when he lived in New York and was diagnosed with hepatitis C virus that he finally took the big decision to quit his job, move back to India and begin writing full time.
His debut novel titled Narcopolis, published in 2012, was based on his life experiences in Bombay and New York. Delving into the drugs’ trade in the Maximum City during the 1970s and ‘80s, the novel brought alive its deep impact on the poor, deranged and marginalised sections of the public. Referring to the approach he had adopted in Narcopolis, the author was quoted as having said in an interview that he had always disagreed with the seemingly stereotypical portrayal of India in “soft focus”, as a place of monsoons, mangoes and spices, of lovable children and loving elders. “To equal Bombay as a subject you would have to go much further than the merely nostalgic will allow. The grotesque may be a more accurate means of carrying out such an enterprise,” he had said.
{{/usCountry}}His debut novel titled Narcopolis, published in 2012, was based on his life experiences in Bombay and New York. Delving into the drugs’ trade in the Maximum City during the 1970s and ‘80s, the novel brought alive its deep impact on the poor, deranged and marginalised sections of the public. Referring to the approach he had adopted in Narcopolis, the author was quoted as having said in an interview that he had always disagreed with the seemingly stereotypical portrayal of India in “soft focus”, as a place of monsoons, mangoes and spices, of lovable children and loving elders. “To equal Bombay as a subject you would have to go much further than the merely nostalgic will allow. The grotesque may be a more accurate means of carrying out such an enterprise,” he had said.
{{/usCountry}}In 2007, the passing away of his wife, Shakti Bhatt, and the pain of that loss haunted his 2008 poetry collection titled These Errors Are Correct.
Following up on Narcopolis, Thayil’s next two novels, The Book of Chocolate Saints (2017) and Low, published this year, form part of a trilogy that is set in Mumbai. The Book of Chocolate Saints, a work that includes real and fictional figures, encourages readers to spot the “real story” between the gaps. Partially inspired by the author’s childhood, the work features Thayil’s thoughts on subjects as diverse as reality, worship and representation.
Thayil was also the editor of the Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets, 60 Indian Poets, Give the Sea Change and It Shall Change: 56 Indian Poets and a collection of essays titled Divided Time: India and the End of Diaspora.
He also received grants and won awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Swiss Arts Council, the British Council and the Rockefeller Foundation.
Awards
Thayil’s poetry collection These Errors are Correct was conferred the Sahitya Akademi Award for English in 2012. He was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize during 2012 and The Hindu Literary Prize in 2013 for Narcopolis. In 2013, Thayil became the first Indian author to win the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature for Narcopolis.
Interesting facts
Jeet Thayil’s versatile, highly creative stints included those of performance poet and musician. As a songwriter and guitarist, he is one half of the contemporary music project Sridhar/Thayil (Mumbai, New Delhi). During the early 1980s, he also played the guitar for the psychedelic rock band Atomic Forest for a brief period.
In 2012, he wrote the libretto for the opera, Babur in London, in collaboration with the composer Edward Rushton. The world premiere of Babur took place in Switzerland in 2012, followed by tours to the United Kingdom (performed at theatres in London and Oxford) and India.
Writing an introduction to Gemini, Thayil’s first book of poems, eminent Indian poet Dom Moraes, whom the former idolised and was majorly influenced by, pertinently remarked that Thayil did not trouble his mind with the concerns of many Indian poets, their Indianness, that he did not make statements that were irrelevant to his work, that his concerns were mainly personal. Thayil, Moraes said, “works his feelings out with care, through colourations of mood rather than through explicit statements.