JEET THAYIL BOOKS

JEET THAYIL was born in 1959 into a Syrian Christian family in Mamalasserie, Kerala. He was educated at Jesuit schools in Bombay, Hongkong, and New York, and worked as a journalist for twenty-three years before writing his first novel, Narcopolis.

He was a staff writer and editor on magazines and newspapers, including Asia week (Hongkong) and India Abroad (New York). He was a columnist for various publications, including The South China Morning Post (Hongkong), The Times of India(Bombay), Sunday Mid-Day (Bombay), and The Independent (Bombay). He wrote art and news features, interviews, and book reviews for The Guardian (London), Newsweek (New York), Indian Express(New Delhi), Time Out (New Delhi) and Caravan (NewDelhi). He was the Literary Editor at Gentleman magazine, and an editor with other journals until he quit journalism in 2004 and returned to India to write fiction and poetry.

In India, he began work on Narcopolis, a novel that was awarded the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and shortlisted for five other prizes, including the Man Booker prize and the Man Asian Literature Prize. His second novel The Book of Chocolate Saints was published in 2017.