Samit Basu

Infobox Writer
name = Samit Basu


caption = Samit Basu
birthdate = bda|1979|12|14
birthplace = Kolkata, India
occupation = Novelist
nationality = Indian
period = 2002–
genre = Fantasy
influences = Terry Pratchett, J. R. R. Tolkien
website = http://samitbasu.com

Samit Basu is the author of "The Simoqin Prophecies", "The Manticore's Secret" and "The Unwaba Revelations", the three parts of The GameWorld Trilogy, a fantasy trilogy published by Penguin Books, India. He currently lives and works in Delhi, India.

Biography

Born December 14, 1979, Basu grew up in Calcutta, where he studied at Don Bosco School, and later Presidency College, Kolkata, where he obtained a degree in Economics. He dropped out of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and then went on to complete a course in broadcasting and documentary filmmaking at the University of Westminster, London.

Writing career

"The Simoqin Prophecies" was written when Basu was 22 and published when he was 23, making him one of India's youngest authors. In 2003, Basu was in "Outlook" magazine's list of 16 Indian achievers under 25. He has contributed to "The Harper Collins Anthology of New Indian Writing" (2004). He has also written short stories for children, which appear in the "Puffin Book of Bedtime stories" (2005), the "Puffin Book of Funny Stories" (2005) and 'Seven Science Fiction Stories' (Scholastic India, 2006). In 2006, Basu published a series of articles and interviews on Indian speculative fiction called "The Trousers of Time: Possible futures of Indian speculative fiction in English" on a fellowship from Sarai In 2007, Basu contributed to 'Superhero!', a collection of stories about Indian superheroes published by Scholastic India and was declared, along with other prominent young Indians such as Rahul Gandhi and Vidya Balan, one of India's most promising 'Emerging Indians' by a survey conducted by IMRB and The Week magazine, India.

"The Simoqin Prophecies", written in English, has been published in Swedish by Ordbilder, and German (from Piper Verlag) and Spanish translations of the GameWorld trilogy are on their way.

Apart from his novel writing, Basu is a columnist, scriptwriter, documentary filmmaker and freelance journalist writing on travel, film, books and pop culture. He also runs a weblog. Basu has also started writing comics for Virgin Comics. His initial projects with them are Devi (#3-#10) and The Tall Tales of Vishnu Sharma based on the Panchatantra. Basu recently announced on his blog that he has co-written a comic with X-Men and Lucifer writer Mike Carey.

Writing style

The GameWorld trilogy has innumerable allusions to literary works from all over the world, including fantasy fiction and other fiction, to tales of superheroes and occasionally even to movies. He draws inspiration heavily from Indian and Greek mythology, Indian folklore and modern fantasy fiction works. Basu liberally uses puns, tangential references, and situational humour.

Bibliography

ources

* [http://samitbasu.com Samit Basu's website]
* [http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?BV_ID=@@@&contentType=EDITORIAL&sectionName=TheWeek%20COVER%20STORY&programId=1073755753&contentId=2738874 Week-IMRB survey] profile on Basu from the [http://week.manoramaonline.com/cgi-bin/MMOnline.dll/portal/ep/theWeekContent.do?BV_ID=@@@&contentType=EDITORIAL&sectionName=TheWeek%20COVER%20STORY&programId=1073755753&contentId=2738868 Emerging Indians award] story.
* [http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fname=J16under25&fodname=20040112&sid=1 Profile] in Outlook magazine, India from a list of 16 Indian achievers under 25 (2003)
* [http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1001807&CatID=7 Profile] in DNA newspaper, Mumbai
* [http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040126&fname=Books&sid=1 Review] of Basu's first novel in Outlook magazine, India
* [http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=38971&pn=1 Profile] in Indian Express newspaper
* [http://www.myspace.com/samitbasu Samit Basu] on MySpace.com

External links

* [http://www.sffworld.com/authors/b/basu_samit/fiction/plasmoids1.html Short story] : The Plasmoids
* [http://samitbasu.blogspot.com/2005/08/roundabout-delhi-fable.html Short story] : Roundabout (A Delhi Fable) for Outlook City Limits, Delhi (2005)
* [http://samitbasu.blogspot.com/2005/09/iwe-spats-tehelka.html Article] on literary spats among Indian writers (Tehelka newspaper, 2005)
* [http://outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040705&fname=Kunzru&sid=1 Interview] with British/Asian writer Hari Kunzru
* [http://samitbasu.blogspot.com/2006/07/trousers-of-time-possible-futures-of.html Basu's fellowship project] essays and interviews on Indian speculative fiction in books and comics