Vikram Seth is a man of many talents. He is a poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children’s writer, biographer, and memoirist. Vikram was born on June 20, 1952, Calcutta, now Kolkata. Here are a few facts about him that you probably did not know:
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The son of a businessman Prem Nath Seth and judge Leila Seth, Vikram was raised in London and India.
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While studying in India he was did his schooling from the city of Patna and Dehradun.
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He has a master’s degree in economics from Stanford University in the U.S.
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Seth stayed with his uncle, Shanti Behari Seth who is a dentist, on going to England at age 17 for school.
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Seth’s first volume of poetry, Mappings, was published in 1980, he did not attract critical attention until the publication of his humorous travelogue From Heaven Lake (1983), the story of his journey hitchhiking from Nanking to New Delhi via Tibet.
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His first novel, The Golden Gate: A Novel in Verse (1986), describes the experiences of a group of friends living in California.
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Seth’s much talked about book, A Suitable Boy (1993), won the WH Smith Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize.
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In 2001, he was made an Order of the British Empire.
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In 2005, he published Two Lives, a family memoir written at the suggestion of his mother, which focuses on the lives of his great-uncle.
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In 2007, he was bestowed with ‘Padma Shri’—India’s fourth highest civilian honor.
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In an interview, Vikram Seth had confessed about being bi-sexual. He admitted being in a long term relationship with French musician/violinist Philippe Honore.
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