"Every single page of A
Suitable Boy is pleasant and readable and true; but the parts are better crafted, and so
more satisfying, than the whole. . . . Its publishers have likened the book, with its
spacious realism, to Tolstoy and George Eliot. For me, though, A Suitable Boy is closest
to {J.} Tanizaki, in his Makioka Sisters {BRD 1957}. For it is, like the Japanese novel,
at its heart an elegy as well as a comedy of manners, about a traditional society in a
time of change, and about a leisurely world of graces giving way to a new, more democratic
time. . . . Like Tanizaki, {Seth} writes winningly of everything domestic, especially
women and their children. And like Tanizaki, he has given us that unlikeliest of hybrids,
a modest tour de force.- Pico Iyer, a writer
'A tour de force of rhyme and reasonableness, The Golden Gate
doesn't only compellingly advocate life's pleasures, it stylishly contributes another one
to them.' - Sunday Times, London
Three Chinese Poets: Translations of Poems by Wang Wei, LI Bai, and Du Fu
'Seth translates (these poets) with immense felicity....the poet's skill is evident in
every cadence and rhyme.'- India Today
All You Who Sleep Tonight
'Seth's poems touch the heart- and herein lies their appeal.' - The Hindustan Times
VIKRAM
SETH: THE SUITABLE BOY OF ANGLO-INDIAN WRITING
Vikram Seth was born in India in 1952. He
studied at Oxford, Standford and Nanjing Universities, and spent two years in China doing
research on economic demography. He is trained as an economist and has lived for several
years in the UK, California, China and India. His works include The Golden Gate: A
Novel in Verse, A Suitable Boy, From Heaven Lake: Travels through Sinkiang
and Tibet and four volumes of poetry titled Mappings, The Humble
Administrator's Garden, All You Who Sleep Tonight and Beastly Tales From
Here And There. He has translated some Chinese poems into English in a book called Three
Chinese Poets. His most recent book is the novel An Equal Music which hit the
book market along with Rushdie' s Ground Beneath Her Feet.
Vikram Seth was paid $430,000 by the British publishers Orion for his second novel A
Suitable Boy. The 1,349 page novel is considered to be the longest novel in a single
volume.
An Equal
Music is Seth's lastest offering to the literary world. A novel 381 pages long
published by Viking is the story of Michael,a lonely, brooding violinist who lives in
London with the memories of Julia- the "making of me", the pianist with whom he
made such melody.
Years later, Michael and Julia meet again. She's married, he's not. She's troubled by her
hearing: he is troubled. Julia agrees to join Michael's quartet for a concert in Vienna,
where they were together as students an age earlier.
Source: The India Today, April 5, 1999 To know about what R. K.
Narayan had to say about Vikram Seth and his novel in verse The Golden GateClick here
To read the interview of Vikram Seth given to India Today saying that Rushdie' s not
a rival. Click Here
"Surrender to this strange, beguiling world and be swept away on the wings of
story....It is difficult to imagine that many contemporary writers could give us a novel
that provides so much deep satisfaction." —Washington Post Book World
VIKRAM
SETH: THE SUITABLE BOY OF ANGLO-INDIAN WRITING
To know about what R. K.
Narayan had to say about Vikram Seth and his novel in verse The Golden Gate 
