Amit Chaudhuri on his book: 'The Origins of Dislike'

Amit Chaudhuri will be speaking about his new book of essays, The Origins of Dislike, reflecting on the form of the essay itself, and how this book both refers to and extends his fiction and earlier critical writings. Here, he attempts to disprove and question several assumptions - that a serious and original artist cannot think critically in a way that matters; that criticism cannot be imaginative, and creative work contain radical argumentation; that a writer reflecting on their own position and practice cannot offer more than a testimony of their work, but open up how we think of literary history and reading.

“These essays testify to a formidable intelligence at work. Chaudhuri’s engaging yet exacting reflections range widely across literature and the arts. Puncturing intellectual pieties and lazy thinking, they challenge us to rethink how art and the world connect.”  Rita Felski, William R. Kenan Jr, Professor of English, University of Virginia

Amit Chaudhuri is the author of seven novels, the latest of which is Friend of My Youth. He is also an essayist, poet, musician, and composer. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Awards for his fiction include the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Betty Trask Prize, the Encore Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, and the Indian government’s Sahitya Akademi Award. In 2013, he was awarded the first Infosys Prize in the Humanities for outstanding contribution to literary studies. In 2017, the government of West Bengal awarded him the Sangeet Samman for his contribution to Indian classical music. He is Professor of Contemporary Literature at the University of East Anglia. At the moment, he is one of the inaugural fellows at the Columbia Institute of Ideas and Imagination in Paris.

This event is part of the Writers at York series, which offers a lively programme of public readings and workshops, and aims to celebrate and explore the work of emerging and established contemporary writers.