Jyoti Guptara

Infobox Writer
name =Jyoti Guptara


imagesize = 250px
caption = Jyoti Guptara at Odyssey bookshop in Chennai, India.
pseudonym =
birthdate= birth date and age|1988|11|22
birthplace=Frimley, Hants, UK
deathdate=
deathplace=
occupation=novelist, journalist
genre =Fantasy, Science fiction
movement =
debut_works=Novel: Conspiracy of Calaspia
influences=C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, William Golding, Stephen Lawhead, George MacDonald
website =http://twins.guptara.com


footnotes = Jyoti Guptara (born November 22, 1988) is a young novelist of British and Indian heritage, best known as co-author of the "Insanity Saga" (writing together with twin brother Suresh Guptara).

Biography

Jyoti Guptara was born in Frimley, Hants, UK, to an English mother (Philippa Guptara) and Indian father (Prabhu Guptara), and raised in Farnham, Surrey, until the age of seven, when he moved to eastern Switzerland, where he is currently based as probably the youngest full-time writer in the worldref|twinswebsite.

He and his twin brother finished the first draft of their critically acclaimed fantasy epic, "Conspiracy of Calaspia", at the age of eleven. At the age of fifteen, Jyoti became the youngest known journalist to publish a piece in "The Wall Street Journal"ref|wallstreetjournal. Soon after this he left school to study on his own (homeschooling, but teaching himself), successfully completing his O-levels before becoming a professional full-time writer.

At the age of seventeen, "Conspiracy of Calaspia" made him one of the world's youngest bestselling authors.

Appearances

India

After "Conspiracy of Calaspia" was launched in India in November 2006, Suresh and Jyoti spoke at the Delhi Launch, at which were such eminent personalities as the Chief Minister of Delhi H.E. Sheila Dixit and Tarun Tejpal, founder of "Tehelka" (Guests of Honour). In January 2007 the twins appeared at their Goa book launch, where "Calaspia" was released by the Governor of Goa, H.E. S. C. Jamir. Suresh then returned to school in the UK while Jyoti Guptara continued for his first book tour, alone, through Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore. In February again Jyoti returned to India, to Bombay this time, for the International Media Festival Kitabfest, where he spoke alongside such entertainment personalities as Gregory David Roberts (author of "Shantaram") and Oscar-winning director and producer Shekhar Kapur among others. These and other appearances helped push the book up the Indian Fiction Bestseller List (source: "Associated Press"), where from #3 in the week of 22 December 2006ref|2006bestseller - incidentally, behind "Shantaram" - it rose to #2 in the week of 19 January 2007, second only to Booker Prize Winner Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss".

USA

To promote the "Calaspia Competition" [http://www.twins.guptara.net/news.htm] , literacy and creativity among young people, the Guptara Twins did a 2-week tour of the USA from New York and New Jersey on the East Coast to San Francisco, San Jose, Monterey and Los Angeles on the West Coast. In Los Angeles, the Guptaras were awarded with Scrolls of Honour by the County of Los Angeles for Special Services to the Countyref|LosAngeles (they donated 1000 copies of Calaspia to inner-city children and visited deprived areas to promote reading). "They are really very outstanding and distinguished, but they're also doing something wonderful for the County of Los Angeles and for children here,"ref|Sup.Burke said Supervisor Yvonne Burke of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Despite these appearances, the Guptara Twins have yet to sign with a US publisher.

United Nations GAID

As the Youth Ambassadors for NABU (Knowledge Transfer Beyond Boundaries)ref|NABU, a partner organization of the United Nations, Suresh and Jyoti Guptara appeared at the Geneva World Youth Summit for ICT and Youth for Development in Geneva from 23 - 27 September 2007, organized by the UN-GAID' (United Nations Alliance for ICT and Development). Jyoti spoke on a Panel titled "Building Human Capital and Intellectual Capacity"ref|UN in the main hall programme, and as the representative of Europe on the Youth Panel.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland

As of March 2008, the Guptara Twins are on a three-month tour of Germany, Austria and Switzerland with German-language publisher Rowohlt.

Hair

Jyoti has been growing one strand of hair for over two years, that now hangs to his shoulder from behind the right ear. He vowed not to cut it until their book was published (before they had received any acceptances from publishers). Originally he grew all of his hair, but this was annoying during schoolwork and exams, when he says he leaned over his papers in typical student fashion. As a surprise, the strand was cut off on the Swiss TV talk show "Aeschbacher" in March 2008 by the talk show host Kurt Aeschbacher.

Records

* Youngest person to write (with twin brother Suresh) a full-length novel (as opposed to novella), with over 60,000 words: "Conspiracy of Calaspia", at the age of 11
* Youngest full-time writer in the world: at the age of 15
* Youngest bestselling author in Switzerland, then India, (and at least one of, if not the, youngest in the world - investigation required): at the age of 17

At this point it must be mentioned that Jyoti makes the records as the younger of the Guptara Twins, however, it is possible that some of these achievements go to both of them, as they collaborated on the work that garnered them the record.

Works

* ISBN 81-8386-026-5 (hardcover, November 2006)

References

# http://www.twins.guptara.net/bio.htm
# http://tehelka.com/story_main21.asp?filename=hub102806vanity_fair.asp
# http://www.kerala.com/news/newsDetails.php?ndId=886
# http://www.inglewoodtoday.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=865&Itemid=8
# http://www.inglewoodtoday.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=865
# http://www.nabucouncil.org/
# http://www.un-gaid.org/fr/gfyouth/agenda

ee also

* Suresh Guptara, fraternal twin brother of Jyoti Guptara
* Prabhu Guptara, father of Jyoti Guptara

External links

* [http://www.twins.guptara.net Official homepage www.twins.guptara.net]
* [http://www.twins.guptara.net/bio.htm Official Guptara Twins biography]
* [http://www.literarytourofengland.com Calaspia Competition Literary Tour of England]
* [http://www.indiasnews.com/News-486739.html Indias News Article and Interview]
* [http://www.twins.guptara.net/bbc_world-calaspia-guptara-twins Recorded audio of interview with Guptara Twins] from "BBC World Service"
* [http://www.swisseduc.ch/english/readinglist/guptara_jyoti/bio.html Jyoti Guptara talks about their lives] Recorded audio of interview, Jyoti Guptara talks to Hans Fischer of "SwissEduc"
* [http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?autono=269021&leftnm=5&subLeft=0&chkFlg= Business Standard Q&A] , 24 December 2006, New Delhi