Novelist, playwright, critic, screenwriter
Kiran Nagarkar is a bilingual novelist whose first novel Saat Sakkam Trechalis is considered a landmark in Marathi literature The rest of his novels are in English: Ravan and Eddie, Cuckold, God’s Little Soldier and The Extras. His novels are translated into Marathi, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. While Cuckold won the Sahitya Akademy Award for best novel in 2000, the doyen of Indian literature, Khushwant Singh remarked that ‘…Cuckold written in English I regard as the best by an Indian.’ In 2012 The New York Review of Books published Ravan and Eddie which Katherine Boo called ‘Wicked, magical, hilarious, enduring: A masterpiece from one of world literature’s great cult writers.’ in their new e-book series. Last year (2015) he published a two-in-one book, his highly conroversial play Bedtime Story published for the first time after thirty-seven years, and Black Tulip, a screenplay. His latest work, Rest in Peace: Ravan and Eddie is the last novel in the R and E trilogy.
In November 2012 the President of the Federal Republic of Germany awarded Germany’s highest civilian award the Cross of the Order Of Merit to Kiran Nagarkar. 1915 was also the year the Tata Literature-Live Festival singled Nagarkar out for its Life-time Achievement Award.